Robin Lane Fox

Robin James Lane Fox FRSL (born 5 October 1946) is an English classicist, ancient historian, and gardening writer known for his works on Alexander the Great.Lane Fox is an Emeritus Fellow of New College, Oxford and Reader in Ancient History, University of Oxford. Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History at New College from 1977 to 2014, he serves as Garden Master and as Extraordinary Lecturer in Ancient History for both New and Exeter Colleges. He has also taught Greek and Latin literature and early Islamic history.

His major publications, for which he has won literary prizes including the James Tait Black Award, the Duff Cooper Prize,the Heinemann Award and the Runciman Award,include studies of Alexander the Great and Ancient Macedon, Late Antiquity, Christianity and Paganism,the Bible and history, and the Greek Dark Ages. His most recent book in 2015 concerns the patristic author Augustine of Hippo. He is the gardening correspondent of the Financial Times.

Books in order of publication:

  • Alexander the Great (London: Allen Lane, 1973, and New York: E. P. Dutton, 1974) (awarded Duff Cooper Prize and James Tait Black Memorial Prize)
  • The Search for Alexander (London: Viking, 1981)
  • Pagans and Christians: In the Mediterranean World from the Second Century AD to the Conversion of Constantine (London: Viking, 1986; Penguin Books Ltd re-issue, 2006)
  • Better Gardening (London: R. & L., 1982)
  • Variations on a Garden (London: R. & L., 1986)
  • The Unauthorised Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible (1991; new edition, Penguin Books, 2006)
  • The Long March: Xenophon and the Ten Thousand (Yale University Press, 2004)
  • The Making of “Alexander”: The Official Guide to the Epic Alexander Film (London: R. & L., 2004)
  • The Classical World: An Epic History from Homer to Hadrian (London: Allen Lane, 2005)
  • Page, Russell, The Education of a Gardener (New York Review of Books reprint, 2007), preface by Robin Lane Fox
  • Travelling Heroes: Greeks and Their Myths in the Epic Age of Homer (London: Allen Lane, 2008)
  • Thoughtful Gardening: Great Plants, Great Gardens, Great Gardeners (London: Particular Books, 2010)
  • Augustine: Conversions and Confessions (London: Allen Lane, 2015) awarded Wolfson History Prize)
  • The Invention of Medicine: From Homer to Hippocrates (2020)
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