The Glory of the Empire by Jean D'ormesson

The Glory of the Empire by Jean D'ormesson

The Glory of the Empire is the rich and absorbing history of an extraordinary empire, at one point a rival to Rome. Rulers such as Basil the Great of Onessa, who founded the Empire but whose treacherous ways made him a byword for infamy, and the romantic Alexis the bastard, who dallied in the fleshpots of Egypt, studied Taoism and Buddhism, returned to save the Empire from civil war, and then retired "to learn to die," come alive in The Glory of the Empire, along with generals, politicians, prophets, scoundrels, and others. Jean d'Ormesson also goes into the daily life of the Empire, its popular customs, and its contribution to the arts and the sciences, which, as he demonstrates, exercised an influence on the world as a whole, from the East to the West, and whose repercussions are still felt today. But it is all fiction, a thought experiment worthy of Jorge Luis Borges, and in the end The Glory of the Empire emerges as a great shimmering mirage, filling us with wonder even as it makes us wonder at the fugitive nature of power and the meaning of history itself.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781590179659
ISBN 10	159017965X
Title	The Glory of the Empire
Author	Jean D'ormesson
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	The New York Review of Books, Inc
Year published	2016-05-03
Number of pages	392
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.