Heinrich Schliemann lived from 1822 to 1890, but The Walls of Windy Troy covers his early childhood only briefly, through use of flashback. The biography opens with Schliemann's visit to Hamburg at age nineteen in search of a job. The book follows him to Holland and eventually to St. Petersburg, Russia, where he becomes an established businessman. Schliemann moves to California in 1850 to clear up his late brother's estate and to capitalize on the booming gold-rush economy. After his return to Russia, the scene shifts in 1866 to Turkey, where Schliemann digs for the site of ancient Troy. He hypothesizes that the city lies near the village of Hissarlik, and succeeds in unearthing layer upon layer of settlements, dating back to the Bronze Age.

In 1874 Schliemann moves his operations to Mycenae in Greece, where he hunts for the tomb of the Greek warrior Agamemnon. An epilogue capsulizes the advances in archeological...