Complete Idiot's Guide to Alexander
Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2009 2:11 pm
No, not literally a Complete Idiot's Guide to Alexander, but an excerpt from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Ancient Greece. The other day I took the book off the shelf of Barnes n Noble to read with my coffee, expecting to disdainfully dismiss the section on Alexander. That may sound harsh, but books covering the full swathe of ancient Greek history tend to either treat Alexander from an exaggerated Plutarchian perspective, full of only admiration and praise, or they reproduce a rather boring list of his achievements with little attention paid to his character one way or the other. This time I was rather pleasantly surprised …
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Not bad, not bad at all, IMO. (Comments from other Pothosians are encouraged ). And the rest of the chapter lived up to the introduction, as much as a few brief pages on Alexander's life are able to do so. I forgot to take my (new) reading glasses with me so I passed on reading the chapter about Philip. Next time though …(Page 296) Whereas Alexander's father, Philip II, was (and is) often seen as a man of personal and professional excesses, cunning disloyalty, and brutal violence, Alexander's own life was (and is) often viewed through the filter of admiration and wonder. Yet, in many ways, Alexander was his father's son. Both men took advantage of all available means to achieve adventure, conquest, and victory. Both possessed the ability to blend and mold traditions, and both met challenges with creative and decisive action. And both men led lives characterized by excess. By living on the edge, and by continuously challenging the boundaries of physical, social, cultural and personal norms, both men contributed to their untimely deaths. So, in this chapter, we'll try to capture both the legend and the life of Philip II’s son, Alexander the Great.
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