Introduction: What Is a Hero? -- 1. God's Heroes: Deborah, Judith, Samson and David -- 2. Earthshakers: Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar -- 3. Feminist Fire and Slaughter: Boudica -- 4. Exemplary Heroes: Henry V and Joan of Arc -- 5. Heroism in the Age of the Axe: St Thomas More, Lady Jane Grey, Mary Queen of Scots, Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Ralegh -- 6. In the Roar of the Cannon's Mouth: Washington, Nelson and Wellington -- 7. Tortured Heroism in a Man's World: Jane Welsh Carlyle and Emily Dickinson -- 8. Two Kinds of Nobility: Lincoln and Lee -- 9. Cerebral Heroism: Ludwig Wittgenstein -- 10. The Heroism of the Hostess: Lady Pamela Berry et al. -- 11. A Generous Hero and a Heroic Monster: Churchill and de Gaulle -- 12. Heroism Behind the Greasepaint: Mae West and Marilyn Monroe -- 13. The Heroic Trinity Who Tamed the Bear: Reagan, Thatcher and John Paul II -- Epilogue: Any Future for Heroism?