New book...

[neneh]

Hi everyone,I just wanted to inform you that there's a new book on ATG out on the Swedish market. It's called "Alexander den store" ("Alexander the great", duh) and is written by historian Bengt Liljegren. I'm only half-way through it at the moment, so I'm not going to submit a review. However I just wanted to tell you that the author mentions pothos.org in the sources and literature section of the book in the following terms; "my favourite is pothos.org, a website with a great number of well-written texts about everything from his [Alexander's] birth to the end in Babylon".
So well done, all of you. ;)All the best,Neneh.

[Laura Casemier]

Please DO write a review.I am still a newby in Alexander studies but what I did find out is that the only valuable books are written in German, Dutch and French, and not in English. It's not that I dislike the British or Americans, but their language is so widely spoken that it is easy for bad books (Lane Fox, Worthington, Cartledge...) to get published. There's always a market. A book published in a continental language needs to be good. Laura

[marcus]

Hi Laura,Of course, whether a book is 'bad' can be very subjective. I agree about Worthington's, but I would have to disagree with you about Lane Fox and Cartledge. They might not be 'great', always depending on who the intended audience is (or probably many other criteria), but I think it's a bit harsh to describe either of them as bad.Still, there might be others who beg to differ about Worthington ...All the bestMarcus

[heinrich]

I guess Laura is a bit exaggerating -Cartledge isn't that bad- but I do agree with her judgment about Lane Fox, who later regretted this book as a youthul lapse. It's nice to read, but that's all.HM

[abm]

Hi Laura,I also don't see how you can call Cartledge's book bad. Indeed it might not offer very much new insights, but that goes for almost any book written on Alexander these last years [and Bosworth's Conquest and Empire proves English is not the problem:-)]. The reason is quite clear, there is no new material nor a better understanding of the old sources. Therefore i suggest that it should be forbidden to write a new general monograph on Alexander until the following works are published:Bosworth's commentary on Arrian VI-VIIAtkinson's commentary on Curtius VII.3-XBaynham's commentary on the Metz EpitomeWorthington's commentary on Diodorus XVIIvan der Spek and Finkel's Babylonian Chronicles of the Hellenistic Periodthe recently discovered Aramaic texts from Alexander's reignregards,abm

[marcus]

Good call!

[marcus]

Hi Heinrich,I do think we have to be a bit more generous about considering the audiences for these books, though. It might be that Lane Fox isn't considered good enough for serious academic study these days (I don't know - when I was at university he was, but that was 1988-98), but I fail to see how it should be classified as a 'bad' book.I suppose this means that I am unfair to say that Worthington's is 'bad' ... but actually I think it is, because it's (a) badly written/edited, and also (b) too fanciful once he gets on his high horse about Alexander's "paranoid" murder sprees (? anyone).ATBMarcus

[Laura]

But isn't Lane Fox also too fanciful? I recall the beginning of his description of the battle of Gaugamela. Or the two talking snakes during the Siwa expedition.Laura

[marcus]

I don't remember how he starts Gaugamela, but I don't think Lane Fox *believes* the story of the talking snakes - he is just reporting what Ptolemy apparently wrote in his history.ATBMarcus

[abm]

Lane Fox certainly is too fanciful sometimes. His account of the Successor Age reads like a description of the end of the world.