Regular marked price: $22.95Discount Price: $15.61
Cost Savings: $7.34 (32%)Price fluctuation possible.
How soon does it ship: Normal ship time within one day
Shipping? Absolutely FREE if you qualify for Super Saver Shipping.
Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 938.07092
EAN num: 9780520071667
ISBN number: 0520071662
Label: University of California Press
Manufacturer: University of California Press
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 617
Printing Date: October 05, 1992
Publishing house: University of California Press
Sale Popularity Level: 50876
Studio: University of California Press
Other books you might be interested in perusing:
Editor's Notes and Comments:
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 very 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 backnotes, fourteen maps, and chronological and genealogical tables serve readers with more specialized interests.
Amazon.com Review:
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.'
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
-
I've been reading a reasonable amount of history lately, and I was starting to get worried how much of it has left me rather cold. Either I find that I can't engage with the writing, or else I find the thesis of the writer poorly supported. I had started to get the bad bad feeling that my problem with historians was more about me than about the history itself.
Luckily, just about that point I picked up Alexander of Macedon. Excellent and apparently well-respected as history and delicious to read as a book. It doesn't talk down to the readers; it doesn't pretend to know more than it possibly can do. The prose is very good. The logic and structure of the book are clear and well-ordered. I really enjoyed reading it and felt that I learned a lot.
When I sat down to write this, I read some reviews and letters that were written by Green in the New York Review of Books. His tone was much as this book would lead me to expect-- acerbic, smart and witty. He is a very good writer. In fact, that seems to be one of the arguments most commonly used against his books. He writes too well.
A brief dip into the online world highlights two basic types of criticism for Alexander of Macedon. There are the Alexander fans who hate Green for not being flattering enough about their hero. (The fact that the book's title says nothing about "Alexander the Great" is kind of a giveaway that Green was not embarking on a course of further myth-making around the king. Shame, many seem to want him to be idolized and not studied.) The other criticism seems to come from Very Serious Academics who admit Green's enthusiasm for the subject matter, while making snide remarks about how he is more a novelist than a historian. The implication seems to be that this makes Green more suitable for armchair historians like myself than Very Serious Academics.
And that may well be true. Since I'm not a VSA myself, I can only report that it seemed just right for me. I'll also note, mildly, that he does seem to be widely respected and that the people who don't respect his work appear in the minority.
Alexander is a fascinating character. I have been thinking about him a lot since finishing the biography. His career raises a huge number of questions about the nature of greatness, and those questions obviously also matter to Green. I'm not sure if he ever settles for himself how "Great" Alexander really is-- but there is a firm argument made for his importance-- a hard argument to counter, in my opinion.
Recommended. Best history book that I have read in a long time.
Rated by buyers -
Alexander, usually known as the Great, was truly great if we are speaking of military prowess. Perhaps the greatest general the world has ever known, Alexander had an insatiable desire to conquer. His motivation did not seem to lie in wealth but in the desire for power, the lust of battle, and the march toward deification. No army could stand against him, all other men were diminished in his presence, he was the ultimate conqueror. He conquered everything except himself, and this proved to be his undoing.
Today we all but idolize men such as Alexander, however it is worth noting that at his death he was universally hated. He most likely died of poisoning, possibly at the hand of his tutor Aristotle, and the entire world rejoiced. As soon as he died his empire fractured. Green writes, "He spent his life, with legendary success, in the pursuit of personal glory, ... and until very recent times this was regarded as a wholly laudable aim. The empire he built collapsed the moment he was gone" (p.488). Perhaps this is a lesson for us all.
This is surely one of the best biographies on the life of Alexander the Great. I recommend it for all that have interest in such subjects.
Rated by buyers -
Peter Green is one of the foremost scholars of Alexander the Great. His biography of the Macedonian King is based upon the evidence of the ancient sources, which are themselves only secondary sources, since the eye-witnesses to Alexander's exploits are unfortunately no longer extant. Green does not have "an agenda" as some reviewers have suggested; he is merely evaluating the evidence of Arrian, Plutarch, Quintus Curtius, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, etc., etc. as it they read it in Callisthenes, Ptolemy, Aristobulus, Onesicritus, etc., etc. All of the non-extant primary sources had their own agendas. Callisthenes was Alexander's press agent and image maker; Ptolemy, who highjacked the king's body, wrote his subsequent history of the expediton in such a way that his own exploits were highlighted.
All of what Green writes is in the ancient sources. He has not made up the facts that Alexander could be very unpleasant at times (Consider his treatment of Thebes, Tyre, and Gaza; not to mention his reported murders of Philip's general, Parmenio; Parmenio's son, Philotas; Alexander's old family retainer Cleitus; Alexander's cousin, Alexander of Lyncestis, and the king's own spin-doctor Callisthenes [Alexander ordered the last two to be carried around in cages, Lyncestis for three years and Callisthenes for several months until he died of obesity and lice in India, according to Plutarch.]).
If Green's Alexander does not live up to the "idealized" Alexander of those who have not read the ancient accounts, it is because we are dealing with a man who, with the aid of Callisthenes, had carefully crafted his own image. That image, which was always grandiose, became even larger than life after Alexander's death, when his successors got busy rendering the Macedonian king's image into their own images.
Alexander was not Alexander the Saint; Alexander the British Public Schoolboy; Alexander the Guy-I'd-Like-to-Have-a-Drink-With (Heavens forfend!); Alexander the Ideal Husband; or even Alexander the Nice, he was actually Alexander the Imperialist! And yes, he was Great! Anyone who can march an entire army--indeed a mobile state--around for ten years, traveling 22,000 miles through snow-blasted mountains and sand-driven deserts deserves the term Great, no matter how many men and women he kills in the process (and Alexander's collateral damage was not to be sneezed at!). The fact that we are even arguing about him yesterday demonstrates that he achieved his dream in renouncing his father Philip and becoming, very first the Son of Zeus-Ammon; and subsequent the New Triumphant Dionysus. Alexander has indeed achieved immortality.
Peter Green has demonstrated Alexander's Greatness in a manner that is both exciting and eminently readable. If he has knocked the Macedonian off his gold-plated pedestal of propriety, Green has done readers a singular service, and, in the process, he has brought Alexander to life as the complex, deeply disturbing--and infinitely interesting--character that, according to the ancient sources, he certainly must have been.
Rated by buyers 
-
I'm very disappointed with this book.
I was looking for some objective and critic biography but this book have an obvious agenda from page one: put down Alexander by any possible means.
For Mr Green every good or great thing Alexander is credited to had done is just propaganda or flattery.
He can even doubt the result of a great battle like Granicus because our sources are few and unreliable. For him it was a defeat hidden by propaganda, a theory he make up with nearly zero backup from the ancient sources.
But instead, he don't hesitate to follow without doubt every nasty detail some of this sources could give us about the bad acts of Alexander (the chapter about Cleitus assassination for example is pure gossipy).
For me, thats not an historian...
A shame...
Rated by buyers 
-
It's obvious Mr. Green knows his stuff but I feel this was written for a few of his peers and not the average reader. He tends to explain why he thinks what he thinks, and why others might be wrong or right, or whether new research challenges long held beliefs, etc. which is fine when chatting with your pals who are also well versed in the subject but better left to an appendix in a book as it stems the narrative flow. Please just tell me what happened, tell me why you think so later. I trust you. More than once I found myself at the bottom of the page having to reread it because my mind began to wonder.
The author assumes the reader is an academic like himself and peppers the book with phrases like, "The truth of the matter can never be known for certain. If we apply the cui bono principle, then Alexander undoubtedly had everything to gain..." and "De l'audace, toujours de l'audace, encore de l'audace: all through his life this was to be Alexander's guiding star, ..." and so on.
This in not a friendly book for commuters or people who like to read before bed. The chapters range from 30-60 pages a piece so every time you pick it up you're making a commitment. One personal annoyance is that, when referring to something he has already touched upon, the author has the bad habit of saying (see above pg. 47) or (see above pg 123) It paints a picture of him editing it on his computer, why not just say see pg. 47 or pg. 123 why the "above"?
Academics and those already familiar with the subject may enjoy the book, History Channel historians who saw a cool special on Alexander and want to learn more may want to look elsewhere.
Find other books like this one:
