Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #355337 in Books
• Published on: 2005-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 276 pages

Synopsis
Combines contemporaneous accounts, critically studied legends, reproductions of pertinent artworks, and photographs to provide a full-scale, nonideological biography of the Macedonian conqueror and empire builder.

Customer Reviews

A good introduction
A very romantic account of Alexander, in which everything he did is viewed through a rose tinted filter. Mary Renault can obviously see no wrong in the famous conquerer, her vision of him at times borders on hero worship.
Having said that, this is a very enjoyable & well written book & was actually one of the first books I ever read on the subject.
If you want an in depth serious look at Alexander & his times then it is probably best to avoid this book, but as an introduction to the subject I can recommend it unreservedly.

Romantic, flawed and yet fascinating
Renault's book probably isn't for the serious student of either Alexander or Hellenism, but it is a fascinating book for all that. Written by the novelist who wrote the best trilogy on Alexander, this is her supposed attempt to 'prove' her history was correct, but leaving that argument aside, it is still a fascinating read. Renault's interpretation of Alexander is unremittingly romantic, and yet she still paints an irresistable picture of a man, a king and a commander that I at least want to believe in. For the hard-core historian, you'll probably want to avoid this but for anyone else, read it and be enthralled.

Alexander revisited
Last October, I read and reviewed Peter Green's biography of Alexander the Great, ALEXANDER OF MACEDON, 356-323 B.C., to which I gave five stars. It was subsequently suggested to me that Green's book was a "hatchet job", and that I should read Mary Renault's THE NATURE OF ALEXANDER for a more balanced view.

Renault's volume is very readable. In factual substance, it seems to my unscholarly eyes to be pretty much the same as Green's. I certainly didn't learn significantly more about Alexander from the former than the latter, though that portion of Renault's narrative concerning Alexander's death was fleshed out a bit more. Renault, however, strikes me as a much more sympathetic biographer. Whether this adds more truth to her version is, and will remain, indeterminable by me.

In balance, I think I would choose and recommend Green's biography for the simple reason that he includes over a dozen route maps and battle plans that help the reader put Alexander's accomplishments in better perspective. Renault provides none at all, and the absence of such is a significant omission, in my opinion. Alexander led his Macedonians from the north of Greece to the western border of the Indian subcontinent - the edge of his known world - and almost all the way back again. Twenty-five thousand miles in eleven years! It isn't until you see this plotted on a map of the region that the remarkable accomplishment can be appreciated.

THE NATURE OF ALEXANDER reinforced my opinion that Alexander was the greatest military commander of all time and the most charismatic and successful leader of men who's ever lived. At one point, just prior to marching homeward from India, Alexander was gravely wounded by an arrow that penetrated his lung. The rumor spread through the army that he was dead, and he felt it necessary to show himself. Renault quotes Nearchus:

"... he ordered a horse to be fetched him. And when he mounted it ... the whole army clapped their hands repeatedly, and the banks and the river glades threw back the sound. (Near his tent he dismounted), so that the army could see him walking. They all ran to him from every side, some touching his hands, some his knees, some his clothing ..."

What an experience it must have been to march to the ends of the earth with such a King!