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Virtual Macedonia Bookstore - The Genius of Alexander the Great
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List Price: $17.95
Our Price: $12.28
Your Save: $ 5.67 ( 32% )
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Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 355
EAN: 9780807847442
ISBN: 0807847445
Label: The University of North Carolina Press
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 248
Publication Date: 1998-08-31
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Release Date: 1998-08-05
Studio: The University of North Carolina Press
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: THE BEST HISTORY OF ALEXANDER
Comment: Nick Hammond's "The Genius of Alexander the Great" is the best history of the subject available. It is tightly written and the sources are effectively documented and brilliantly analyzed. His knowledge goes far beyond the typical Athens-centered perspective, as he is uniquely knowledgeable of the entire region around Greece and Macedon. Best of all, his understanding and presentation of Alexander's military history is unexcelled.
Of course, there are many contemporary accounts and all suffer due to the weakness of ancient sources. We have no history from Alexander's time, as all the ancient sources are actually secondary sources writing at least a Century later. Choosing among these ancient sources is such an unstable enterprise that most modern authors find themselves selecting this or that version of Alexander based on their own emotional whim or ideological predisposition. What generally emerges is a sort of historical miasma, and the deeper the reader goes into these other studies, the less substantial Alexander and his time appear.
Not Hammond. How did he avoid the problems and write such a solid history?
First, his strategy is to strip away all the peripherals from the narrative and nail the essential story. Next, rather than encumbering this book, Hammond cross-references all his previous scholarship. Hammond and other scholars he cites have in other works analyzed all the ancient sources and documents where each, in turn, got his material. Hammond in this book is able to give the briefest summaries of the reasons he selected the content he uses, confident that the student interested in sources will go to the documentary works. Those interested in just the pure narrative of what can be known of Alexander can simply read this book. Hammond may appear too quick to judgment to students who don't have Hammond's grasp of the sources (as you may see from some of the breathless reviews), but he makes the story both thrilling and solid.
Hammond's knowledge of the history and geography of Macedon makes his description of Phillip -- and the state Alexander inherited -- brilliantly exciting. Deftly, he shows what an astonishing force of history Phillip was, how he stabilized and remade Macedon, how he transformed Macedon's relationship with the Greek states and how he reorganized the small states around Macedon, Thrace and northern Thessaly as a basis for Macedonian power.
Hammond also shows without comment how vulnerable and foolish the Greek states had become. The multi-generational, internecine warfare produced exactly the constant instability and waste of warfare you would expect. It is painful for the reader to once again see that democracies work when the citizens are conscientious, but can be pathetic when the citizens are foolish and vain. Nonetheless, it could have been no simple thing for Phillip and Alexander to have managed the mix of diplomacy, politics and military force required to so quickly master these rich and resourceful city states. More than any other, and without gushing, this clear book simply demonstrates the brilliance of Phillip and Alexander's politics.
If Hammond has a bias, it is toward historians of Alexander who have military experience themselves. But unlike most military historians with personal military experience, Hammond does not wallow in warfare. What he does, as throughout the book, is write the clearest and most reasonable explanations of the military tactics and strategy, how (and exactly where) each battle was fought, what the strengths and uses of each army were, and how well Alexander understood how to use his army and how brilliantly Alexander was able to assess a tactical situation and respond.
This is an exciting, clear, well documented analysis of great confidence and authority. For now, there is no better book with better judgment out there.
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Summary: Mega Alexandros
Comment: I have read many books about Alexander and unfortunately most of them misrepresent him as a Tyrannt or whatever the authors feel that can diminish a great personality through exaggeration.
However, Hammond has broken away from the micropolitics and has gone one step further and asks the question of why Alexander acted in this way. You could say that the book is an answer to the misinformed scholars about Alexander the Great. In other words, I found that the book is Alexander's "Apology" for his actions.
Being of a Greek background, I found that the translations of the sources are accurate and not misinterpreted. Hammond's knowledge of the Ancient Hellenic civilization have helped him understand what we as Greeks know about Alexander and his role in the Ancient Hellenic civiliztion.
I recommend this book to serious history readers who don't want distorted facts and events.
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Summary: Hammond's Alexander - A Perfect King?
Comment: In recent years, there has been a positive fashion for writing about Alexander the Great, particularly after the mid-century arguments from scholars who wanted to view him either as an evil tyrant, or a sort of proto-Christian examplar of conquering chivalry. Hammond's book is obviously part of this all-or-nothing trend in Alexander studies.
I read N.G.L. Hammond's book, The Genius of Alexander the Great after reading numerous other biographies including Fox, Green, Wilcken, and others, largely due to my appreciation of Hammond's status as an Oxford scholar with thirty years of solid publication on Alexander, Macedonia, and the Greek Hellenistic world. Although his credentials are impeccable, almost from the first chapter I realized that I was reading one of those scholars who felt they had to take a stand on the issue of Alexander-the-Good, Alexander-the-Bad. And Hammond definitely comes down on the side of Alexander the decent, good well-meaning chappie, who was a military genius. To me, this kind of selective biography becomes increasingly irritating, although to the brand-new student of Alexander, his summary of the known facts about Alexander's life is meticulous and quite helpful - except for his bias.
Reading this book will give you the Alexander basics, but from Chapter 1, Hammond feels authoritively able to simply discount sources he dislikes (i.e., ancient sources who brought up questions concerning Alexander's temper, violence, cruelty, drunkenness, and less-than-altruistic motiviations). So we regularly hear that such-and-such a source may be "dismissed" as a complete or partial fabrication. Apparently, Hammond particularly loathes Curtius, but Diodorus Siculus is also regularly dismissed out of hand. Instead, he quotes extensively from sources such as Ptolemy, Aristobulus, and their heir, Arrian, showing Alexander in the best possible light.
In any book, whether it's Tarn or Badian, I am deeply suspicious of selective source-hunting, and I'm afraid that Hammond's regular choice in this regard grew irksome to me. I would say this is a good, steady view of Alexander's life and works with the proviso that the reader must be aware of all that is being bowdlerized from the ancient sources. I, personally, believe in a decent Alexander who also could do awful things, but scholars who ignore contradictory sources to present him do his genius no good service. In so saying, I mean no disrespect to Hammond's obvious expertise in the area and his long history of scholarship in this field. I simply wish he could have brought his expertise to bear in accepting both the good AND the bad about Alexander.
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Summary: Well-Detailed, Highly Entertaining And Informative.
Comment: Few figures in the history of the world have attained the mythical status and timeless quality of Alexander The Great. The man and myth continue to fuel the imagination of every new generation. This is no surprise when one reads about the man's achievements and how they changed the world. The lore of the story relies in the classic, epic sense of adventure that courses through it, it is a tale that takes us through various cultures, characters and to the stretches of the known world. N.G.L. Hammond is clearly an admirer of Alexander and tells his story here with the flare of homage and reverence. "The Genius Of Alexander The Great" gives us a story of boldness and the quest for knowledge and truth. Alexander comes off as a highly intelligent, cultured commander who embarks on a quest to defeat a mammoth Persian empire and bring Greek culture into the civilisations of Asia and beyond and to also introduce their cultures to the Greeks and Macedonians. Hammond describes in great detail the battles Alexander wins against Persian king Darius, who is ruler of the world before the Macedonian king steps ashore. The book is also a fascinating exploration of Greek history, taking us deep into the cultural traditions and aspects of Alexander's world. One realizes you cannot judge Alexander by the standards of our time, this is one figure that demands to be judged by the standards of his own time and era. If one takes the book to heart with careful attention, you realize what sets Alexander apart from conquerors like Caesar, Napoleon and Hannibal is that his goal was simply to achieve a sort of greatness in the style of Achilles ("The Iiliad" was a constant companion during the Asiatic campaign). Hammond's book is also a wonderful gallery of characters. The most memorable aside from Alexander would have to be his free-spirited mother Olympias, who here is depicted dancing wildly in Dionysian cults, handling snakes and indulging herself in orgiastic rituals such as the "Bacchae." There is also Alexander's talented, brilliant father Philip, the philosopher Aristotle and others. It's evident that Alexander lived in special times for the history of civilisation and he was simply there to add his mark. And Hammond writes it all with a novelistic style that engrosses the reader and transports you there clearly and vividly. From Macedonia and Persia to Egypt and India, Hammond takes us on a journey to understand how there are daring, epic moments in history that live on forever. A wonderful read and memorable book.
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Summary: Great book on a great historical figure.
Comment: This is the last book written by Prof. Hammond on ATG and it really is a nice piece of work. Some people may claim that he tends to over-glorify Alexander but I don't believe so. His analysis is very balanced and his criticism is not based on 20th Century values and ideals, which is a problem with other authors on the same subject.If you're looking for a good book on Alexander the Great, do start here.
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Editorial Reviews:
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By the time of his death in 323 B.C., Alexander III of Macedonia had built an empire that stretched from the eastern Mediterranean coast through Asia Minor and into the Indus valley. Even before his sudden death, Alexander had achieved mythical status throughout his kingdom, and in the centuries that followed his life became the subject of countless chronicles and biographies. N. G. L. Hammond, the foremost expert on ancient Macedonian history, here presents a new account of Alexander's fabled career. Based on a thorough analysis of the ancient sources and enriched by a lifetime of research, Hammond's narrative pronounces the Macedonian conqueror a man truly deserving of the title Alexander the Great. According to Hammond, Alexander was a visionary statesman and general, the force behind a kingdom which rose above racism and nationalism to enjoy peace and prosperity. His intellect and charismatic personality, which earned him the respect, admiration, and devotion of his subjects, also help explain Alexander's endurance as a source of fascination into the present day.
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