From Democrats to Kings: The Downfall of Athens to the Epic Rise of Alexander the Great, Michael Scott (Icon Books 2010, previously published in 2009) xix, 294pp., paperback, £8.99, ISBN 978 1 84031 131 2

This is the first book by Michael Scott, currently Moses and Mary Finley & Fellow of Darwin College, Cambridge.

Generously illustrated, the book has four clear maps and 16 plates, including the law for the protection of democracy set up in Athens in 338 B.C. with the young personification of democracy crowning the old man of the people.  There are also a select bibliography for each of the nineteen chapters, a full timeline and a good index.

The book successfully explores the dramatic and relatively little regarded story of the transition of the ancient world in less than a century, from democracy to the control of a large part of the known world by an absolute monarch who was to be a model for despots for millennia to come.

Dr Scott incidentally gives insight into the challenges of the 21^st century when many democracies, old and new, fight for survival and when an economic crisis has brought about a loss of our sense of self in a similarly short space of time.  One key to success of this wonderfully cheap book is the focus put on individuals.

It is a story which is vividly told.

G.R. Batho