Attila the Hun – godless barbarian and near-mythical warrior king – has become a byword for mindless ferocity. His brutal attacks smashed through the frontiers of the Roman empire in a savage wave of death and destruction. His reign of terror shattered an imperial world that had been securely unified by the conquests of Julius Caesar five centuries before. Christopher Kelly takes us on a search for the real Attila the Hun. For the first time, Attila is revealed as an astute politician and first-rate military commander who brilliantly exploited the strengths and weaknesses of the fading Roman empire. We ride with Attila and the Huns from the windswept steppes of Kazakhstan to the opulent city of Constantinople, from the Great Hungarian Plain to the fertile fields of Champagne in France. Challenging our own ideas about barbarians and Romans, imperialism and civilization, terrorists and superpowers, this is the absorbing story of an extraordinary and complex individual who helped to bring down an empire and forced the map of Europe to be redrawn forever.