Product Description

Until recently, popular biographers and most scholars viewed Alexander the Great as a genius with a plan, a romantic figure pursuing his vision of a united world. His dream was at times characterized as a benevolent interest in the brotherhood of man, sometimes as a brute interest in the exercise of power. Green, a Cambridge-trained classicist who is also a novelist, portrays Alexander as both a complex personality and a single-minded general, a man capable of such diverse expediencies as patricide or the massacre of civilians. Green describes his Alexander as 'not only the most brilliant (and ambitious) field commander in history, but also supremely indifferent to all those administrative excellences and idealistic yearnings foisted upon him by later generations, especially those who found the conqueror, tout court, a little hard upon their liberal sensibilities'. This biography begins not with one of the universally known incidents of Alexander's life, but with an account of his father, Philip of Macedonia, whose many-territoried empire was the first on the continent of Europe to have an effectively centralized government and military. What Philip and Macedonia had to offer, Alexander made his own, but Philip and Macedonia also made Alexander form an important context for understanding Alexander himself. Yet his origins and training do not fully explain the man. After he was named hegemon of the Hellenic League, many philosophers came to congratulate Alexander, but one was conspicuous by his absence: Diogenes the Cynic, an ascetic who lived in a clay tub. Piqued and curious, Alexander himself visited the philosopher, who, when asked if there was anything Alexander could do for him, made the famous reply, 'Don't stand between me and the sun'. Alexander's courtiers jeered, but Alexander silenced them: 'If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes'. This remark was as unexpected in Alexander as it would be in a modern leader. For the general reader, the book, redolent with gritty details and fully aware of Alexander's darker side, offers a gripping tale of Alexander's career. Full back notes, fourteen maps, and chronological and genealogical tables serve readers with more specialized interests.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #162833 in Books
• Published on: 1992-12-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 617 pages

Customer Reviews

Fascinating History
I read this over 18 months ago. I have'nt read anything better since and I read a lot.

The story of Alexander it a truly amazing one. Even taking that into account this book is an excellent read. You get a great incite into the politics, scheming and rivalries that took place. The coverage that battles is excellent too - with diagrams and tactical analysis. Finally, the danger and brutality of these ancient times is vividly cast without over doing it.

This is a great read and you'll learn some history too.

Exactly how history should be written
Macedonian politics, the plains of Persia chasing fleeing kings, revolts in staff officers.....the sort of stuff that seems to be the perfect recipe for insomnia. but , peter green's version of alexander has all that, ( even more), and yet was a spellbinding account that i managed to put down only when i had finished reading it whole.

alexander has been one of history's most colourful characters. a gifted general and leader of men, who died young, after singly managing to command an army that conquered the the largest empire a single man could win at that time. peter green brings out the genius in alexander, while making him believable. he fumes at his friends, his mistrusts his generals though needing them while feeling exasperated when they want to go home after failing to integrate in the eastern way of life. yet, his campaigns are brilliant, his battle plans a work of genius and in spite of all his massacres and often sensless violence, we are awed by him at the end of the book.

the language of the work is lucid, the storytelling frank,balanced, sensitive and sensible, which is a surprise for a work of history. the maps, especially of all the major battles are exceptionally well done and very comprehensible. all in all, a very good buy , and the best way to spend a free day.......sunny or not!

Have sword and spear, will travel
Only occasionally have I read a work of history that's in the "can't put down" category. DISTANT MIRROR by Barbara Tuchman, MEN TO MATCH MY MOUNTAINS by Irving Stone, and Shelby Foote's monumental Civil War trilogy come to mind. ALEXANDER OF MACEDON, 356-323 B.C. by Peter Green is now another.

This material first appeared as ALEXANDER THE GREAT in 1970. This particular volume, a revision and expansion of that earlier book, is the second reprint (1991) of the title first published in 1974.

For the sake of background, the author necessarily begins his masterpiece with Alexander's father, Philip of Macedon, whose achievement was to unify Macedonia and coerce the Greek states to the south to join with him in an Hellenic League. But, after Philip is assassinated on page 105, it's all Alexander as he marches his army on a peripatetic route of conquest against the Persian Empire throughout Asia Minor and the Middle East as far as present-day West Pakistan - and then back again. Twenty-five thousand miles - the circumference of the Earth - in eleven years. I kept turning the pages to see what he was going to do next.

In his "Preface to the 1991 Reprint", Green makes it clear that his study of Alexander is a work in progress, and that even this book needs further revision in the light of new information. However, as flawed as the author may consider his ALEXANDER OF MACEDON to be, his masterful distillation of 17 pages worth of ancient and modern sources makes the narrative of Alexander's life sing. Green's prose is crisp and touched with a dry humor, and it never bogs down.

Though Green concludes that Alexander is "perhaps ... the most incomparable general the world has ever seen", he doesn't spare his subject from charges of megalomania and tyranny. But, in a man who never lost a battle and was proclaimed first the son of a god, and then himself a deity, can this be so surprising? Alexander is, in a sense, a tragic figure - one who couldn't see the wisdom in the statement of his subordinate commander, Coenus:

"Sir, if there is one thing above all others a successful man should know, it is when to stop."

ALEXANDER OF MACEDON is replete with a Table of Dates, fourteen maps and battle plans, and a 24-page appendix examining in detail the poorly documented battle on the River Granicus, Alexander's first victory in Asia against the Persian king Darius III.

My only complaint regarding this riveting historical piece is that the author didn't summarize the chaotic dissolution that overtook Alexander's empire immediately after his death. The contrast would have made me appreciate Alexander's achievement all that much more.