Cleopatra (Hardcover)

In her day, Cleopatra was certainly one of the worlds most powerful women. In perpetuity, she is undoubtedly one of the most famous--vilified and deified, criticized and reclaimed in potent measures. With this biography, Stacy Schiff--the critically acclaimed, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer who has worked on figures such as Vera Nabokov and Benjamin Franklin--attempts to unearth a coherent and clear picture of a woman born in 69 B.C. Schiff approaches her biography with a wide lens, painting a vivid and informative picture of the political scenario and city in which Cleopatra lived, Alexandria. She draws from archaeological, historical, anthropological, and psychological sources in order to sort out fact from fiction in regards to a savvy and highly intelligent woman (Cleopatra spoke nine languages) who aggressively used mystification--right up to her dramatic double suicide death--as a tool to gain and maintain political power.