I thought Stacy Schiff did a good job placing Cleopatra within the time frame of history, and also within the context of her times. What I thought could have been improved was the linear flow of the book. There was a lot of hopping about, which was distracting. Eventually, I saw where she was going, but it made reading go a lot more slowly. Three of our group admitted they nodded off while reading, even thought they found it interesting! I attribute that to the choppiness.