Cleopatra's Palace : In Search of a Legend
Founded in the late 4th century B.C. by its namesake, the  conquering Alexander of Macedon, the Egyptian city of Alexandria  enjoyed a near-perfect site: "a flat and narrow limestone expanse at  the edge of the Nile delta, some thirty miles west of the great  river's westernmost branch" that stood before a superb deep-water  harbor. The Ptolemaic dynasty that Alexander founded produced, three  centuries later, Egypt's last true pharaoh, Cleopatra, who built on  the site fabulous structures of marble, granite, precious gems and  metals, and glasswork--a palace complex renowned throughout the  ancient world. Cleopatra, writes Laura Foreman, was both "a  hard-headed pragmatist and at the same time a devout mystic," a stern  ruler whose position was constantly challenged by rivals to the throne  and the ever-expanding Roman empire alike. Caught on the losing side  in a power struggle between the Roman generals Octavian and Antony,  Cleopatra committed suicide; with her death came the end of Ptolemaic  power.History did not forget her, but the elements (particularly the rising  Mediterranean sea) swallowed up much of the ancient city of  Alexandria. In the late 1980s, an international team of archaeologists  began to excavate the underwater ruins of ancient Alexandria. Foreman  documents their work in this richly illustrated, well-written  reconstruction of the ancient past, a book that armchair Egyptologists  will find irresistible.--Gregory McNamee