Stories left untold are forgotten and gnaw away at the memory. Herodotus of Halicarnassus knew this well. Twenty five centuries ago he travelled all over the  known world, investigating, asking questions, observing… and wrote down his "histories" in a great work that has come down to posterity with the simple title History.
This book offers a fascinating journey through the ancient world hand in hand with Herodotus. He tells how Pharoe Psamtik found out who were the first inhabitants of the earth, how Croesus destroyed a great empire, or why the Persian king Cyrus was said to be a bastard. It is thanks to him that we know the walls of Babylon were impregnable, that geometry was invented in Egypt or that a rearing horse dethroned king Darius. And much else besides.