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Virtual Macedonia Bookstore - Into the Land of Bones: Alexander the Great in Afghanistan (Hellenistic Culture and Society)
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List Price: $15.95
Our Price: $14.35
Your Save: $ 1.60 ( 10% )
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Manufacturer: University of California Press
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 939.6
EAN: 9780520249936
ISBN: 0520249933
Label: University of California Press
Manufacturer: University of California Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 260
Publication Date: 2006-09-14
Publisher: University of California Press
Studio: University of California Press
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Bush's Fault
Comment: Alexander had more troubles in Bactria than in any other part of his empire. Most people who have a reasonable knowledge about his life will recognize this. He couldn't soulve his problems there with a single battle or siege, so he had a series of skirmishes, ambushes to finaly "pacify" the country.
But the author's necessity to present his case against George Bush is so strong that he deliberately paints the war as hopeless from the beginning. But the truth that anyone can grasp from the book is that: Alexander remained in Bactria for just one year, and that was enough. An army of greek veterans (actually, soldiers old enough to be relieved from the main army) which represented only a small fraction of the macedonian army was able not only to control the country for 200 years, but to spend most of this time fighting against each other since other threats were not present.
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Summary: A Great Title!
Comment: For those who enjoy popular history, "Into the Land of Bones" presents a good fast-paced read. Certainly, the author's thesis that the military protagonists of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries--the British, the Russians, and the United States--have not learned the lessons of history that Afghanistan [Alexander's Bactria and the Hindu Khush] ought to have taught them is undeniable. And Alexander's exploits are always compelling, especially the accounts of his deteriorating relations with his army in the unforgiving land that is today's Afghanistan.
Unfortunately, however, this is Alexander-Lite. Other than his primary thesis on the Afghan quagmire, if one might use the term, the author does not delve deeply into the issues. Relying on tendentious evidence, he presumes to enter the mind, for instance, of Roxane, who "may have wished to remain anonymous married quietly to a local villager" [91]. Mercifully, he does not probe the psyche of Thalestris, Queen of the Amazons, who wanted to have Alexander's baby! It is difficult to take such speculations seriously.
On a more serious note, the author omits any discussion of the major problem confronting scholars when evaluating the evidence for Alexander the Great: that the primary sources, which he does cite, are actually secondary sources, who are relying on lost eye-witness accounts, many of which had their own agendas. The author's splendid title, which immediately grabs the reader's attention, presents an example. In his recurring discussion of the "devouring dogs" that gnaw the bones of the dead and the dying at Zariaspa (Bactra), he cites the 1st-century geographer, Strabo (11.11.3), and two secondary sources. He neglects to inform us, however, that Strabo cites Onesicritus of Astypalaia as the source of this gruesome tale. Although Onesicritus constitutes an eye-witness of sorts, he is ridiculed by the ancient sources, including Arrian, as being both fanciful and mendacious. Alexander himself, according to Plutarch, threw Onesicritus' tales into the Indus River and told their author that he ought to jump in after them for writing such trash. And that is my biggest criticism of this book; that the author is extremely selective in his citations. So although I would not recommend the book as a reading for a serious course on Alexander the Great, I would recommend it as an entertaining book for the general public who doesn't care a whit about the picky-picky nature of scholarship.
After all, no matter what any of us think, Alexander will remain Great. Otherwise we wouldn't keep reading about him.
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Summary: Counterinsurgency in the Ancient World
Comment: An excellent addition to the literature on counterinsurgency and on Alexander the Great. Dr. Holt uses his extensive knowledge of Alexander to tell a cautionary tale about the long history of Afghanistan as a land of insurgency. He does this by telling the story of the insurgency there against Alexander which will be repeated several times in later periods with particular emphasis on the two nineteenth century British experiences, and the 20th century Russian experience, with an eye towards lessons for the 21st century American involvement. It is quite successful in presenting a cautionary tale about counterinsurgency in Afghanistan. He also does an excellent job of contrasting the first half of Alexander's military campaign outside of Greece which had a very conventional, albeit supremely successful, beginning with a sharp turn to unconventional after the death of Darius forced Alexander to enter Afghanistan to battle a warlord who also claimed the throne lost by Darius.
The book succeeds both as a cautionary tale and as a straightforward account of the much lesser known foray into Bactria (modern day Afghanistan.)
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Summary: Argument from history is always dangerous and dubious
Comment: Professor Holt has written a superb book about Alexander the Great's sojourn in what we now call Afghanistan. It is unlikely that he would have written this incisive and careful gem if we had not been attacked by fanatical murderers who were based there. We were attacked, brilliantly and successfully, and we have yet to bring to justice those who plotted this attack. In short, we are still not winning this war we have declared. But Professor Holt is not writing about this directly. What he has done is describe Alexander's attempts to pacify the region in preparation for his assault on what we now know as Pakistan and India.
Alexander was the model of all conquerors after him, not only because he was remarkably successful but because he was audacious and brilliant, as well as remarkably brave and vicious, even by contemporary standards. As Holt shows, Alexander never did pacify the tribes of this region, in part because the geography of mountain valleys, desert and vast open grasslands were a nursery for tribalism. Holt leaves it to the reader to draw conclusions about our sojourn in Afghanistan. He does not compare our policy with Alexander's. How could he since we do not have a real policy. Half of Pakistan could as easily be in Afghanistan, Pashtuns living on both sides of the border.
What Holt does show us with economy and brilliance, that despite the passage of two millenia, dramatic changes in religion and technology, there remains a profound commitment to feud, tribal loyalty, warrior culture and the oppression of women that no democratic country such as we claim to be can bring to heel without destroying our values and self-respect.
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Summary: Into The Land of Bones
Comment: A really excellent book. It is a refreshingly short, but very
inclusive insight into the divisive nature of Afghanistan's
culture and society which has, despite the many failed.
conquests of its people from Alexander's times to ours, remained
largely unchanged. It is presented in very easily understood
language for the average reader, though I think it would provide
a valuable digest of its subject for the more academic reader.
I have found it very enlightening in that it has deepened my
belief of why our own military involvement, because of its failure
to consider the lessons of Afghanistan's historical resistence to
change, is doomed---at least for now.
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Editorial Reviews:
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What George W. Bush called the "first war of the twenty-first century" actually began more than 2,300 years ago when Alexander the Great led his army into what is now a sprawling ruin in northern Afghanistan. Accounts of Alexander's invasion of ancient Bactria read eerily like news from our own day. In this vivid, meticulously researched, and elegantly narrated book, Frank L. Holt follows Alexander's historical, archaeological, and numismatic legacy back and forth between ancient Bactria and modern Afghanistan. Recounting the plight of the most powerful leader of the time as he led the most sophisticated army of its day into the treacherous world of tribal warlords, Holt describes those grueling campaigns and the impact they had on Alexander, his generals, their troops, and the world. Into the Land of Bones also examines the conflict from the point of view of the local warlords who pushed the invading Greeks to the limits of their endurance--and sometimes beyond, into mania and mutiny. The lively narrative situates the current war in Afghanistan in a broader historical perspective.
Holt explains how the three modern superpowers that have invaded Afghanistan--Britain in the nineteenth century, the Soviets in the twentieth, and the United States in the twenty-first--are continuing the struggle that Alexander began centuries ago. That this legacy continues to play itself out today is a testament to the timeliness of Holt's fascinating and original account.
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