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Acerbic wit and stinging satire are contrasted with delicate sensibility and passionate desire in the work of the Latin poet Catullus. Armed with an urbane sophistication and an aristocratic circle of friends, Catullus moved about easily in the upper ranks of Roman society and was acquainted with Cicero, Caesar, and Pompey among others.

In volume three of Cyril Robinson's famous history of England, we now enter a crucial phase in which political and economic power both change hands. Parliament now dominates the nation's political discourse, and, led by its brilliant Whig leader, Robert Walpole, this party maintains itself in power for a century. It is a stagnant century of corrupt politics and even more corrupt government magistrates and bureaucrats. But it is also the century that will usher in the greatest change humankind has ever seen.

Set during the fierce Trojan War, Troilus and Criseyde is the poignant tale of love won and lost. The beautiful Criseyde becomes the object of desire for Troilus, the son of King Priam, and he is able to win her affection through the machinations of his uncle, Pandarus. They experience a brief time of bliss together, but despite their vows of faithfulness, they are soon separated by the fortunes of war.

The legend of Robin Hood was based on the career of a real outlaw who lived in the forests near Nottingham, England, in the last half of the 12th century. His character has become world famous and is the subject of hundreds of plays, novels, stories, and films. As a man of the people who was a partisan for the lower classes, he also became strongly associated with an anticlerical yet pious Christian attitude, an animosity toward the sheriff of Nottingham, and a special regard toward women, children, and the infirm.

Livy continues his magnificent epic, with Rome in complete ruin after the Gallic invasion and sack of the city in 310 B.C. Led by Camillus, one of Rome's great heroic patricians, the city regains her self-confidence and once more becomes the leader of the Latin people. Painstakingly rebuilding alliances, forging friendships, cementing relations among her own people, and fighting endless wars, Rome soon becomes the dominant power among the fractious Italic tribes on the Latin plain.

Starting with a superbly concise explanation of the Industrial Revolution, authors Garrett and Godfrey explore the intricate series of events that followed on the heels of a conservative reaction to Napoleon's defeat. With varying degrees of success, the victorious Allied powers sought to reinstall monarchy and religious authority throughout Europe.

The enigma of Alexander the Great has remained with us for 2,300 years. In spite of the best efforts of historians, Alexander is no less a mystery to us now than he probably was during his own lifetime. There was no one like him before or since. In the pages of Harold Lamb's intriguing Alexander of Macedon, we find some of the answers to the great riddle of his character.

In Volume 2: The Kingdom of Cotton, the economic and social forces that doomed the South are fully explored. As the textile factories of New England and Europe spring up, they create an insatiable demand for cotton. When Eli Whitney's invention appears, it unleashes the equivalent of a gold rush in the South. In spite of the heroic efforts of Northern and Southern statesmen over a period of 40 years, the regions have moved too far apart. And when war comes, the South is totally unprepared.

Nicolaus of Damascus was a Hellenized Jewish scholar who lived contemporaneously with Octavius and lived to see him become Caesar Augustus. The work itself takes us through young Octavius’ life and shows how he was carefully brought up and eventually adopted by his uncle, Julius Caesar. But what is remarkable about this short biography is the care and detail with which Nicolaus goes about in describing the plot and assassination of Caesar. The aftermath of Caesar’s murder is explained quite clearly as Octavian steps up to claim his uncle’s inheritance.

By the middle of the second century BC, the city of Rome was spiraling toward bankruptcy and moral decay. The generation which had defeated Hannibal and brought the Mediterranean under Roman control had now passed away, even as gold poured in. Hardly a Roman name of any note appears for half a century. The noble Roman has disappeared. The once feared Roman army has become a mere shadow of its former self, and the public have come to accustom themselves to news of shattering defeats.

Book three of Mommsen's history covers the 118 years from 264 to 146 BC, the period in which Rome became the undisputed master of the Mediterranean Basin. How did this happen, and why? Carthage was instrumental in this transformation. With the defeat and expulsion of Pyrrhus in 275 BC, Rome had moved to consolidate its hold over the Italian peninsula, a position it had acquired in a century of almost continuous warfare with Italian tribes.

Gregory of Tours was a Gallo-Roman aristocrat and Catholic prelate born in 538. He died 56 years later, in 591, a period in which the brutal Merovingian rulers of the Frankish nation consolidated their power over most of Gaul. Gregory experienced the transition from the dying world of Roman antiquity to the new culture of early medieval Europe. He lived on the border between the Frankish culture of the Merovingians to the north and the Gallo-Roman culture of the south of Gaul. He struggled through personal relations with four Frankish kings.

In this concluding volume, the South finally comes to grip with the modern world. It does so as a result of three events: World War I, The Great Depression, and World War II. At the end of each of these, change accelerates. By the end of World War II, the region is experiencing the kind of prosperity it has never known.

Second Lieutenant James Madison Page was a Union officer of Company A, Sixth Michigan Cavalry during the Civil War. After participating in many skirmishes and battles, including Gettysburg, Page was captured in Virginia on September 21, 1863 by Confederate forces along the Rapidan. After spending several months in various prison camps, he arrived at Andersonville Prison in Georgia on February 27, 1864. He would remain there seven months during a time when the prison population grew from 10,000 to over 30,000.

Byron's Don Juan is a comic masterpiece written in a satirical, mock heroic style. Based on the legend of Don Juan, (which is here pronounced JOO-AN), Byron completely reverses the portrayal of Juan, instead showing him as someone easily seduced by women instead of seducing them. He called this form of poetry "epic satire". It is generally considered to be Byron's masterpiece.

In this volume, Hannibal and Carthage are finally worn down by the grim determination of the Roman people, and their army is destroyed at Zama by Publius Scipio. And hardly is this over before the vengeful Romans cast their eyes eastward to Philip of Macedon, who had made the fatal error of backing the Carthaginians.

A History of Rome is the story of a tiny market town on the Tiber, its rise to world domination, and then its slow, terrible plunge to utter ruin. It is the single greatest event in all human history.

Virgil's Georgics ranks as one of the most precious pastoral poems ever written, and it has served as a model for its type ever since. Georgics means "of or relating to agriculture or rural life" and it comes from the Greek word, "georgicus". Virgil's main theme in this, his second great work after The Eclogues, was the importance of peace both in the spiritual and physical sense.

19th century Europe produced some of the greatest soldiers, statesmen, scientists, artists, and thinkers of any period in recorded history. And by the middle of that century nationalism had emerged triumphant from Ireland to Greece, and many new nations, including Germany and Italy, had appeared. But nationalism was accompanied by a chauvinistic impulse toward militarism.

A terrifying encounter with an escaped convict in a graveyard on the wild Kent marshes; a summons to meet the bitter, decaying Miss Havisham and her beautiful, cold-hearted ward Estella; the sudden generosity of a mysterious benefactor - these form a series of events that change the orphaned Pip's life forever, and he eagerly abandons his humble origins to begin a new life as a gentleman. Dickens' novel depicts Pip's development through adversity as he discovers the true nature of his 'great expectations'.