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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780553382051
ISBN number: 0553382055
Label: Bantam
Manufacturer: Bantam
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 368
Printing Date: September 27, 2005
Publishing house: Bantam
Release Date: September 27, 2005
Sale Popularity Level: 11549
Studio: Bantam
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Product Description:
I have always been a soldier. I have known no other life. So begins Alexander’s extraordinary confession on the eve of his greatest crisis of leadership. By turns heroic and calculating, compassionate and utterly merciless, Alexander recounts with a warrior’s unflinching eye for detail the blood, the terror, and the tactics of his greatest battlefield victories. Whether surviving his father’s brutal assassination, presiding over a massacre, or weeping at the death of a beloved comrade-in-arms, Alexander never denies the hard realities of the code by which he lives: the virtues of war. But as much as he was feared by his enemies, he was loved and revered by his friends, his generals, and the men who followed him into battle. Often outnumbered, never outfought, Alexander conquered every enemy the world stood against him–but the one he never saw coming. . . .
Download Description:
Alexander the Great (356—323 B.C.) ascended to the throne of Macedon at the age of twenty. He fought his greatest battles—including the conquest of the mighty Persian Empire—before he was twenty-five and died at the age of thirty-three, still undefeated by any enemy. His reputation as a supreme warrior and leader of men is unsurpassed in the annals of history.
In the brilliantly imagined first-person voice of Alexander the Great, acclaimed novelist Steven Pressfield brings to life his epic battles, his unerring command of his forces, and the passions and ambitions that drove him. A full-blooded, multidimensional portrait, THE VIRTUES OF WAR captures Alexander’s complex character. Alexander was a fearless commander who moved with such daring and speed that no army could withstand him; a driven leader whose ambitions knew no limits; and a man with boundless compassion for his troops, deep friendships with his generals, and profound respect for his enemies. Yet in the end, his noble qualities were subsumed by his insatiable lust for glory.
No one writes about battles as brilliantly as Pressfield, and in THE VIRTUES OF WAR he vividly describes the seminal conflicts of Alexander’s career, revealing the tactics behind them and capturing the blood, heat, and terror of the battlefield. He follows Alexander’s forces as they faced and defeated armies that far outnumbered them; delivers a thrilling frontline report from Gaugamela, the scene of Alexander’s greatest victory; and, in a memorable vignette, shows the great conqueror finally halted, not by an enemy but by the refusal of his worn-out troops to march any farther.
Epic in scope and magisterial in tone, THE VIRTUES OF WAR is sure to take its place among the classics of historical fiction.
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Rated by buyers 
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not sure i will actually get through this book as it is highly technical on the battle strategy and tactics and a little too much in the head of Alexander, which I am not sure how the author got there. There isn't much history written about Alexander's inner thoughts.
Rated by buyers 
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I read Pressfield's Fantastic "Gates of Fire" and this is a close second. I have also read Valario Manfredi's supurb Trilogy on Alexander. This story is even more gripping.
Also to all those who are dissapointed in the non-gayness of this book: There is absolutely no evidence that Alexander had a gay relationship with Hephastion. All that is mentioned by the ancient authors is that they were "philoi." (Greek for Good Friends) The kind of very close friend you have when you know someone from childhood. It was the lesbian Mary Renalt who corrupted Alexander's legacy to be primarily gay. This is bogus. Read the ancient authors such as Plutarch and you will find no evidence of this. Steven Pressfield rightly concentrates on Alexander's great battles, not on prime time tv style gossip. It urks me to no end when people twist facts to fit their own agenda.
Rated by buyers 
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I guess I was spoiled by Mary Renaults Alexander Trilogy. In Pressfields book Alexander as a person just does not resonate. The admixture of modern military terminology and somewhat of a modern outlook does not gell with the historical setting and mindset as it does in Renaults novels. That said, the strength of this book is its battle scenes, and those are very well done indeed. Researchers have found it hard to recreate the actual battles that Alexander fought from the historical accounts - read Arrian for example to see what I mean - and Pressfield has done a great job of creating descriptions of the battles which ring true.
That said, battles do not make up the whole book and the remainder I personally found unsatisfying and not ringing true. Again, I suspect reading Renaults Alexander trilogy many years previously set expectations which its hard for other authors to live up to. It is very hard to get an idea of Alexander as a person from this novel. Seems very stilted overall. I did read the book through but by the end it was more of a struggle than anything else. If you enjoyed this book, take a look at Renaults trilogy, they will fill in a lot of gaps and present a good alternative view - and a far more sympathetic one for that matter.
Rated by buyers -
This superior historical novel really ought to be read before his latest one, _The Afghan Campaign,_ which enlarges on one of Alexander's later campaigns, and from a different perspective -- but they're really two separate narratives, so no harm done if (like me) you read them in reverse order. The narrative is Alexander himself, outlining the history of his conquest of Asia for the benefit of one of the cadets who study military science in the king's tent while on campaign. He begins with his early life and his succession to the throne after the assassination of his father, Philip, himself something of a military genius. But Alexander is a prodigy, being everything his father was and far more, with the ability to look at the ground and foresee the battle that will take place there and to foresee the enemy's battle plan. He also possesses an extreme degree of charisma; his troops adore him, even when (as later in the conquest) they fear his altered personality. By the time the Macedonians have passed through Persia proper and have completely changed their approach to warfare to suit the guerilla action in Afghanistan (the king's doing again), and have reached the frontier of India, they're tired to the soul and want only to return home. But Alexander dreams of standing on the shore of the Eastern Ocean, which he's sure can't be far beyond the Ganges. This is the story of Alexander's mental evolution, from semi-barbarian king holding sway in the remote north of the Greek-speaking lands to Eastern potentate who has acquired a taste for all things Persian. But Pressfield also describes the major battles along the way, especially Gaugamela, in fascinating detail. You can see the action, really see it, and understand why each side does what it does, and why the results are what they are. In that regard, this is almost a classical military science textbook. An excellent piece of work.
Rated by buyers 
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I don't know if the author is trying to make ancient history more understandable for the modern reader, but he turns me off. He talks about lieutenants and captains and regiments and corps as if Alexander's army were a modern one. It wasn't. To compare, try Colleen McCullough's infinitely superior 6-volume historical novel on the Roman Republic of Caesar's time. She uses the right terminology and gives the reader the feeling that both she, and now the reader, really understood how the Roman cities, army, and government were organized and what life was like then. You just don't get that with Pressfield. I assume he did research, but it's just not evident.
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