Rating: 
Summary: The Clay-Footed Alexander of Macedon
Review: I grew up in the age of an idealized Alexander. First was the Robert Rossen film starring Richard Burton. It was 46 years ago, and though I don't remember much detail I do remember Alexander cutting through the Gordian Knot, his affection for the warhorse Bucephalus, and the deaths of Hephaestion, and Alexander ' his soldiers walking past his death bed. I was struck by Alexander's loyalty, and his emotional depth. Next came a voracious reading (and later re-readings) of Mary Renault's romantic trilogy. The brave son, the bold warrior, the loyal friend ' founder of cities, lover of women and men, etc., etc; heady stuff for a boy entering adolescence. And though my intellectual interest in Alexander waned, his life as reflected in those works marked me. Not too long ago I read 'The Soul of Battle' by Victor David Hanson and came to learn that not everyone held Alexander in the same esteem. I think Hanson may have even called him a 'butcher.' It finally dawned on me, of course, world conquest is not an act of loving kindness. A man could not be responsible for that much death and destruction and not be a brute. I figured I had to read something other than fiction to get a more accurate accounting of my boyhood hero. The Amazon.com site ran a review of 'Alexander of Macedon' that caught my eye with the claim that Peter Green's biography was 'one of the finest.' I was immediately pleased with the title, 'Alexander of Macedon' rather than the expected, 'Alexander the Great.' The book is not a difficult read, in fact, for history it's often quite breezy. The Alexander portrayed is no less a wonder than I always thought, but much more a human. Alexander's greatness, according to Mr. Green, was somewhat erratic, as he could be both great and petty but not in equal measures. The pleasures of slaughter, rape, and plunder were much closer to Alexander's soul than the pleasures of the palace, or the intellectual pleasure of bantering with philosophers. Alexander was an intriguer from childhood, with as great a genius for self-promotion and manipulation as for war; and as great a thirst for alcohol as conquest. Mr. Green has obviously plumbed the sources. His book opens the worlds of Macedonia, Greece, and Persia. He gives us a supporting cast equal to the times, and, finally, Mr. Green gives us a life, as short as it may have been. Alexander died at 33, and his empire went quickly into collapse.
Rating: 
Summary: A very good job for such a mysterious character!
Review: Many books exist about Alexander the Great. However, most of them are written with very vague or unreliable sources. Unfortunately, the oldest works we have are from the Romans. And even they took their sources in previous centuries.
Still, Peter Green (like all his other books) made a wonderful job compiling the information that can be found. He managed to stay focussed on this subject, without falling into the "Alexander was the worst nightmare" or "Alexander was a godlike hero" archetypes. In addition, this book covers quite eloquently his youth and family background.
Af for his military campaigns, this book is good (especially for novices). I myself like Theodore Dodge's very detailed descriptions.
Anyways... If you want to read lots of books on Alexander the Great (like I did), start with this one!
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Summary: Well researched and thorough biography of Alexander
Review: Alexander the Great is not someone about whom it could be said that the definitive biography has been writtern. The difficulty is not just that a biographer is dealing with a figure who lived thousands of years ago, and whose original biographies have been lost. The larger problem is that our view of the world and life is quite different than it was in the time of Alexander and those who followed him. To be a great military leader is no longer viewed as the highest possible achievement, and Alexander's ambition, which was Homeric in scope, no longer seems as admirable as it did in the past. Thus, I think that Green sometimes takes an excessively unfavorable view of Alexander. On the other hand, Green is one of the leading classcial scholars in the world, and he undoubtedly knows what he is doing better than someone like myself. The strengths of this biography is that it is thoroughly researched, does not engage in speculation to fill in the gaps that exist, and is particularly strong on Alexander's battles. One can question whether Alexander was the greatest general of all time -- after all, it was a very different thing to command an army in classical times where a general was expected to be in the forefront of the action, as opposed to the battles of Napoleon, where conduct like Alexander's would have gotten Napoleon killed in short order. Nevertheless, Green's historical judgments seem sound. If you find this book interesting, you will not want to stop here. On the other hand, it is an excellent place to start, and is the best recent biography of Alexander.
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Summary: Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know
Review: As Peter Green's withering deconstruction of Alexander reveals, Alexander was capricious, petty, jealous, paranoid, deluded and grandiose - an all-round borderline personality; almost the parody of a modern tinpot dictator. By sheer coincidence, however (a fortunate one for the Macedonians, not so for the Greeks and the Persians), he happened also to be the greatest field commander of all time. The logical and rhetocial feats of earlier writers, in papering over the cracks of Alexander's personality, have been as as heroic as the Homeric idols worshipped by the Great Macedonian himself. But it's hardly a feat of revisionism to call Alexander a scoundrel - he did, after all, murder his own historian! Green, who wrote this book living in Greece under the martial law of the Colonels, is keen to point out that as a Macedonian (and therefore a foreigner) Alexander himself was loathed by the Greeks, and only invoked the legacy of the Greco-Persian wars as a crude propaganda device. Demosthenes was right about this fellow.
Rating: 
Summary: A work of Historical Fiction, not History
Review: 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.
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Summary: The real Alexander
Review: This is the best biography of Alexander the Great that has been written-both for the general reader and for the specialist.The narrative is lively and bound always to keep the reader's interest. Alexander comes to life as a real person in this work, a commander of incredible genius but also a man with a lot of psychological problems. If you want the romantic myth reading this will make you think ,and if you want the unvarnished truth this is all you need.
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Summary: Fantastic !
Review: Mr. Green's writings about Alexander are almost like a novel. Descriptions of the battles and campaings are very well described. Most interesting are the siege of Tyre and the battle of Gaugamela. The genius behind those event... Alexander has only one rival as a battle commander: Napoleon. As a matter of fact I strongly recommend the reading of John Keagan's "Mask of Command" for a comparison of how command is and changes along the ages. Also splendid and vivid are the tales of young Alexander. How he holds feeling and insults for years (even decades) until he can wind his anger and revenge out. As Joseph Kennedy said: "Don't get mad. Get even". This book is on my list of 10 best books I had ever read. Insitefull both historically and on a personality level. Makes you wonder how strong a man can be.
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Summary: Adventures of a Megalomaniac Military Genius..
Review: Peter Green has brought the Ancient World alive for me as no other author has. His biography of Alexander is probably his greatest achievement. Imagine Stalin with the military genius of Napoleon, the youthful good looks of Prince William of Britain leading one of the greatest fighting machines ever devised (the Macedonian phalanx). Such a conjunction has never been seen since in the world. Alexander was one of a kind but Green has succeeded brilliantly in providing a convincing portrait. By all means read the competition (Mary Renault's novels are probably the best alternative portrait), but this is the best Alexander biography by far.
Rating:
Summary: good reading
Review: This book reads like a novel. When you are done, you will have a working knowledge of Alexander's time, his fascinating exploits, and personality (or what Mr. Green thinks of his personality). In this case, truth is better than fiction.
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Summary: A Compelling Account of the Life of the Macedonian Colossus
Review: Alexander the Great stands astride the military arts like the Colossus of Rhodes, towering over all who have come upon the scene since in silent mockery of their skills as warriors and leaders. Consider a brief listing of his accomplishments. A successful cavalry commander while still in his teens, Alexander took the reins of an up-and-coming minor power and turned Macedonia into the preeminent power in the known world. He built a powerful navy from scratch to challenge the Persian Empire, subdued the contentious Greeks, and conquered Darius. He founded the greatest library of the ancient world at Alexandria, contributing immeasurably to the dispersion of knowledge across the world. He was a student of Aristotle and as skilled in statecraft and diplomacy as in war. Aside from his skills as a leader, Alexander was a powerful hand to hand combatant, possessed of a deep fount of personal courage. He was a hero straight out of Greek mythology, with all the tragedy and triumph the canon contained. It should thus come as no surprise that the life of Alexander would capture the imagination of academics and warriors alike through the ages. Innumerable accounts of his life have been written, the best to date by Arrian and Theodore Ayrault Dodge. Add Peter Green to the top of the heap. His Alexander of Macedon incorporates the work of previous biographers with the most recent research into a breezy narrative which captures the awe and majesty of Alexander's reign. Green takes us to Tyre, where the young king displays the patience of his Greek forebears besieging Troy in building a land bridge to the island city in order for his army to subdue it. We then hopscotch across the near East with the Macedonian army as it conquers its way to Babylon, heart of the Persian Empire. The battles are recounted dramatically and with an eye to detail; Green knows his audience includes plenty of grognards who know the material nearly as well as he. Green does not shy from the controversial arguments arising of late. He takes on the possibility that Alexander arranged the death of his father Philip II in order to usurp the throne, and ruminates on the King's well-known love for the vine. He investigates the potential cause of the fever that would ultimately lay him low (was it poison, typhoid, or something else entirely? Read this book and you'll see). This is easily the most accessible and informative biography of Alexander the Great available in English today. If you have the slightest interest in military history, the Greek world, or biography, get your copy of this outstanding book today.
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