{"product_id":"the-living-isis-michael-mcgilbourne-9798198376861","title":"The Living Isis: Cleopatra VII Philopator Queen of Egypt Alexandria 48 BCE","description":"\u003cb\u003eCleopatra VII Philopator. Queen of Egypt. Alexandria 48 BCE \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003eYou are the end point of an unbroken chain of survival. Every person who came before you - through plague, war, famine, and flood - lived long enough to pass forward what was necessary for you to exist. You did not begin when you were born. You began when humanity began. Everything that happened between that beginning and this moment is not the past in any abstract sense. It is the story of the making of you.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis book takes you to one of the most extraordinary moments in that story.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAlexandria, Egypt. 48 BCE.\u003c\/b\u003e The greatest library ever built. Half a million people. Five languages before breakfast. A queen of twenty-one, exiled from her own palace, building her case against Rome - not with armies. With twelve scrolls on a cedar shelf. The calendar you are reading this on was reformed by an astronomer working in this city, in this year. \u003ci\u003eThe arguments about what she was - queen, scholar, goddess, weapon - have never stopped.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe Living Isis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e asks what it would have meant to be inside that moment. Not as Caesar. Not as a king. But as the ordinary young man - the \u003cb\u003ecopyist\u003c\/b\u003e - who carried twelve scrolls through dark streets past a eunuch's soldiers, and stood in a burning warehouse and asked about the work before he asked about the wound.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ci\u003eWhat did the scholars of the Mouseion know that Rome did not?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ci\u003eWhat does it feel like to carry a thought that will outlast an empire?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ci\u003eWhat is the difference between a library and a weapon - when the woman who used it saw no difference at all?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe facts are extraordinary enough.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Library held up to \u003cb\u003e700,000 scrolls.\u003c\/b\u003e Ships entering the harbour were searched; books were copied and the originals kept.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCleopatra VII was the first Ptolemy in three centuries to learn Egyptian. She spoke \u003cb\u003enine languages.\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe astronomer Sosigenes, working in Alexandria in 48 BCE, gave Caesar the calendar reform that - adjusted by eleven minutes in 1582 - \u003cb\u003eyou are living by today.\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eEratosthenes measured the circumference of the earth from this city using a pole, a shadow, and geometry. He was correct to within the margin of his instruments.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWhen Caesar burned his ships in the Great Harbour, scrolls caught the wind and flew in arcs of fire over the water before they fell as ash.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe name of the last librarian is not recorded.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe lamp lit before the others arrived. The reed pen above the page. The cedar oil and sea wind in a hall two hundred and fifty years old. \u003ci\u003eThey were curious about the same things we are curious about.\u003c\/i\u003e They wrote something that is still asking us questions.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFor homeschooling families: \u003c\/b\u003e You are already doing the most important thing - putting the story of humanity into your children's hands. The \u003ci\u003eBeyond His Story We Stand\u003c\/i\u003e series was written for you. Not a textbook. Not a syllabus. A story your child will not want to put down - that leaves them asking the questions no curriculum can generate. \u003ci\u003eThe questions that only wonder produces.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Living Isis\u003c\/i\u003e - the \u003ci\u003eBeyond His Story We Stand\u003c\/i\u003e series - a chronological journey through human history, told through the people official history forgot to record.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe scrolls survived.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003eCarried by an unnamed hand through a burning city.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003eSo did everything they were carrying.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Michael McGilbourne\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9798198376861\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Independently Published\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 05\/24\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 218\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.57lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.50d","brand":"Michael McGilbourne","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":49173920219391,"sku":"9798198376861","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/the-living-isis-michael-mcgilbourne-9798198376861","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}