Dr Nic Fields started his career as a biochemist before joining the Royal Marines. Having left the Navy, he went back to University and completed a BA and PhD in Ancient History at the University of Newcastle. He was Assistant Director at the British School of Archaeology, Athens, and is now a lecturer in Ancient History and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh.

Donato Spedaliere was born in 1967 in Lausanne, Switzerland, and moved to Tuscany at the age of 10, where he still lives. Having studied at the Instituto Nazionale di Belle Arti in Florence he served in the Italian Army as a paratrooper. He is the chief illustrator of Alina Illustrazioni, the company he founded in 1998 with his wife, the architect and painter, Sarah Sulemsohn. They have created illustrations for books, museums and magazines throughout Europe, working for companies such as Osprey and the BBC.

Mycenaean society was constantly geared for battle and invasion. Their 'cities' were heavy fortresses with unimaginably thick perimeter walls. Legendary sites such as Mycenae, Tiryns, Argos, Krisa, the Athenian Acropolis and Gla are all representative of their fortified citadels that dominated the Greek countryside for some 300 years until their sudden decline and abandonment around 1100 BC. This title describes the golden age of these fortifications; it details how these formidable structures were constructed and extended, as well as revealing the elaborate palace complexes built by the great Mycenaean warlords immortalised in the verses of Homer's Iliad.