From the author of 'The Pike' – winner of the 2013 Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction – a compelling story of heroism told through eight famous lives that span from Achilles to Sir Francis Drake. Beginning beneath the walls of Troy, ending in 1930s Europe, 'Heroes' is a compelling evocation of heroism through eight famous lives – Achilles, Odysseus, Alcibiades, Cato, El Cid, Francis Drake, Wallenstein and Garibaldi. Not necessarily all good – sometimes quite the reverse – but all great, they possessed a charisma, a strength of will powerful enough to persuade those around them that they alone could do the incredible and unprecedented. It is a story of morality and dictatorship; money and sorcery; seduction and mass hysteria.