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 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.
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