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There's no shortage of biographies available on Alexander the Great, but Peter Green's Alexander of Macedon is one of the finest. The prose is crisp and clear, and within a few pages readers become absorbed in the world that made Alexander, and then the story of how Alexander remade it. Green writes, "Alexander's true genius was as a field-commander: perhaps, taken all in all, the most incomparable general the world has ever seen. His gift for speed, improvisation, variety of strategy; his cool-headedness in a crisis; his ability to extract himself from the most impossible situations; his mastery of terrain; his psychological ability to penetrate the enemy's intentions--all these qualities place him at the very head of the Great Captains of history."
From Publishers Weekly
Green's vibrant biography--a History Book Club main selection and a BOMC alternate in cloth--deromanticizes the Macedonian general, portraying him as a ruthless megalomaniac.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Rich and detailed biography,
By
This review is from: Alexander of Macedon, 356-323 B.C.: A Historical Biography (Paperback)
Alexander was an enigmatic figure, to say the least. Peter Green provides us with a fabulously detailed, if somewhat dry--though often quite funny--account of his life. It is a very scholarly work; cross-referenced, annotated like mad and full of esoteric French and Latin idioms with English words I had to look-up in my UNABRIDGED dictionary. Still, you get the sense of a real person behind this legend--and it is fascinating, to say the least. Some repetitious language, combined with a cast of characters that would leave Pynchon scratching his head (Green himself acknowledges the frustration caused by so many duplicate names) make it a little hard to follow sometimes, but the narrative is strong and cohesive. I would have really appreciated a larger number of more detailed maps, since a few of the sites the book makes reference to aren't marked (a pipe-dream, I'm sure, since history itself seems to have swallowed a great deal of that information). The battle-plan graphics for Alexander's major confrontations were helpful in visualizing the scene set by Green's exposition. I recommend this book for anyone who wants a comprehensive study of the man who aspired to be a god.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
A work of Historical Fiction, not History,
By Dr. Ranajit Pal (Calcutta, India) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Alexander of Macedon, 356-323 B.C.: A Historical Biography (Paperback)
Green's "Alexander of Macedon 356-323 B. C. : A Historical Biography", is a famous book which has had a great influence on not only general readers but also on serious scholars. I have much admiration for Green's lucid style and would accept his assertion that he wanted to discover the historical Alexander of flesh and blood stripped away from the accreted myth but I think he has miserably failed in this objective. Green rightly presents Alexander as the most incomparable general the world has ever seen but is not aware of the silent role Sasigupta played in many of his victories. He is totally unaware that Orontobates of Caria was none other than Diodotus of Erythrae of Caria and Tiridates who was at Persepolis. Throughout the work there is a deplorable tendency to carve out an Alexander from the most ghastly and detestable stories that one can lay hands on without for a moment bothering about the probity of the sources or the general scenario. Green mocks at Alexander's idea of Brotherhood of man and at the end what he offers us is essentially an unenlightened Elizabethan perspective. Unfortunately this propaganda has swayed the opinions of many unsuspecting modern historians of Alexander. About himself Prof. Green has recently written, "Professor David Halperin, rather flatteringly, has credited me with being a provocateur, a mischief maker-rather, one gathers, in the spirit of Sherlock Holmes, of whom it was said, in A Study in Scarlet, that he was quite capable of trying out the latest poison on his friends, not out of malice, but in the disinterested pursuit of scientific knowledge". From the recent Scotland Yard reports we now know a little more about the disinterested pursuit of Sherlock Holmes, but this spirit of frolic hardly befits the subject under study. As the great historian J.B. Bury stated, History, after allowing for all its uncertainties, remains a scientific pursuit of Truth and has some relation to the now-forgotten concept of morality. Through the Gedrosian desert Alexander was chasing the all- powerful Moeris (Chandragupta of Prasii). Green has no idea that the navy was carrying provisions for the army which was engaged in a grim and protracted battle. As a general Alexander can hardly be blamed for imposing a levy in order to arrange for the supplies for his army. This is why the people of Pattala had fled. Badian had totally misjudged the situation and had foolishly compared Alexander with Chengiz Khan and Green follows suit and turns history writing into a reckless propaganda exercise. Green's grasp of Indian or Iranian religion or society is extremely meagre. He has almost no time to reflect over the true nature of the Hellenistic miracle or eastern religions like Buddhism which benefited enormously from Alexander's intervention. In my opinion the book is famous for the wrong reasons.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
leaves you wanting MORE,
By Panos "Pontios" (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Alexander of Macedon, 356-323 B.C.: A Historical Biography (Paperback)
A good book for overview of subject. I read it several years ago when I was devouring everything I could get my hands on to do with the subject matter.I give it a 4-star rating for it's bibliography and for the author's modesty when he suggests that it is a subject requiring exhaustive and on-going enquiry. Also has excellent maps. The work itself is broad in its scope a tour-de-force in this regard, but so too are many other works e.g., Hammond, Bosworth, Badian,Fox, Renault etc.. etc...To gain the most benefit from such a work further reading will make the study of this worthy subject in history much more enjoyable and worthwhile. Perhaps Hammond's "The history of the Macedonian state"(?) would be a good companion to this book.... If you really want to get into it start with the ancient sources, the most accessable are Arrian and Plutarch. They may be a little difficult and enigmatic but you MUST read as much as you can because all authors on the subject of Alexander will refer to these two sources time and time again.
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