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Alexander: The Ambiguity of Greatness

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Erudite, engaging and immensely readable, Guy Maclean Rogers's new biography of Alexander may not contribute much new material to an ancient fascination, but the vividness of the writing combined with the author's passion for his subject makes for a gripping read. Though the book tends to race through Alexander's life at the expense of further detail, it is still a more patient account than other recent biographies rushed to stores in time for the movie. From his mounting of Philip II's incorrigible horse as a boy to his legendary pursuit of Darius throughout Persia and subsequent endeavor to avenge his murder (only because Alexander would have liked the honor of killing Darius himself), every quirk and rumor of Alexander's personality is explored here. It is hard to say anything necessarily "new" when no new sources of information exist beyond those of contemporary historians who continue to interpret the documents of the same handful of ancient writers: Curtius, Justin, Diodorus, Plutarch and others. When a chairman of the Department of History at Wesleyan University with a Ph.D. from Princeton tosses yet another biography into the fray, it is usually an attempt to dispute the conclusions of other biographers. Rogers does plenty of that here. Downplaying accounts of Alexander's homosexuality while attempting to understand his bloody rampages across the known world within the context of his times, Rogers objects to notions of Alexander as the Hitler or Stalin of the ancient world, often pointing to the equally brutal tactics of the king's contemporaries. Admittedly, Rogers tends to apologize for Alexander's brutality where he really ought to leave it up to the reader to decide. An ability to let the facts speak for themselves is what makes Peter Green's Alexander of Macedon the preeminent contemporary study of Alexander. But if Rogers's book lacks the authority of a less-enamored chronicle, it makes up for this flaw with its informed eloquence. Rogers has given us a book flooding over with the warm and knowledgeable passion of a scholar who loves his job as much as he loves his subject. If that is a "flaw," I sure wouldn't mind being accused of it myself.

[...]

Alexander of Macedonia lived and died over two thousand years ago. He only lived 32 years and yet, continues to be the subject of book and film. Many questions surround him. Was he truly 'great' or was he a butcher? How did he die? Was he and his mother involved in the death of his father, Phillip?

This is a well-researched book with many pages of references and notes. Rogers presents the history of Alexander based on the major sources "contemporary" to the subject and includes information from more removed (in time) sources.

If you are interested in the details of the battles, you will find this book very interesting. For most battles, it includes a diagram of the battlefield. Some readers may be put off by the long detailed discussions of the battles.

There is, of course, not much new information that can be added to the ancient sources, but we do know a lot of about the customs and social standards of that day in Greece, Persia and India. Rogers addresses some of the social customs of the times, of Alexanders transition to or incorporation of Persian customs, but there could have been a lot more. I wish there had been.

Rather than 'settle' some of the arguments or make judgements about Alexander and the things he did, Rogers tries to put his actions into perspective. He encourages the reader to judge the man in his own environment and times.

Much of Alexander's life is shrouded in myth, and legend. A legend himself, Alexander conquered most of the known world, before his untimely and mysterious death in Babylon.

The young conquerer was renowned for his military tactics and power, yet cursed today as a mass murderer, a tyrant. Is the god-like enigma a genocidal butcher, or a hero?

In this down to earth account Guy MacLean Rogers accurately paints a picture of Alexander's life and times, his victories and...well, victories, the young king never lost a battle. The author clearly displays respect for the conquerer, but in a way not making his biography too bias. Overall, this scholarly and fascinating work, drawing not only on modern evidence, but the accounts of the ancient world, is amazing and interesting in its words, and awing in its message. After more than 2000 years, Alexander comes back to life.

However, I was a little dissapointed with the final chapters summarizing his life and trying to analyze the king himself, his personality and role in history. The author seemed a little too wowed by the conquerer, and basically stated that he was not a tyrant, that he was a just ruler for his time, without giving thought towards the other side of the argument. I found this assessment less useful than just the history of his life.

You can tell that Guy MacLean Rogers deserved a PhD from Princeton after reading this well documented and backed up biography. A man who studied Alexander's life for around 60 years, Rogers has an incredible understanding and new perspective on the life of Alexander, the King, statesman and general. Rogers uses plenty of sources releant to what he is discussing while collecting his own thoughts in turn creating a collaborative arguement where you can learn so much about Alexander and the Macedonian deserved to be called 'Great'. I suggest anyone who is looking at or studying Alexander should definitely purchase this hardcover. Also anyone interested in history or learning about a time so different to ours, this book will challenge you intellectually and deepen your understanding of the history of Europe, Asia and even Africa.

You don't need my opinion. Consider Christopher Hitchens' remarks on Rogers' assessment of Alexander:

"But should he [Alexander] be compared with the other great despots of antiquity, or with more modern totalitarians and butchers?

A very absorbing recent book, Alexander: The Ambiguity of Greatness, by Guy MacLean Rogers, argues that this modern temptation should be avoided. Alexander's tutor was Aristotle (a fact that supplies endless fascination to those who study the relationship between philosophers and monarchs, from Machiavelli to Leo Strauss). And Aristotle, perhaps sharing in the continuing rage and shame at the Persian desecration of the Acropolis in 480 B.C., urged his pupil to treat the peoples of the Persian Empire as coldly as he would plants or animals. The available evidence is that Alexander did not take this advice."

Read the whole thing: http://slate.msn.com/id/2110188/

First of all, I'd just like to correct a previous reviewer. Guy Rogers is a professor at WELLESLEY College, not Wesleyan. It's a very common mistake. :-) Wellesley, for those unfamiliar with it, is the number 4 liberal arts school in the country, and a women's college to boot. Well-known alums include Madeleine Albright, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Nora Ephron, and Diane Sawyer.

Now on to the book. Rogers does a fantastic job breathing life into what could be a very dry biography about a long-dead conqueror. His style is wry and witty, but not flippant. He is very careful to remind the reader of the current relavence of his tale. I got rather the opposite impression than a lot of other readers; Rogers's discussion of Alexander's bisexuality did not strike me as "uncomfortable." I'd recommend this book for just about anyone (not kids, though; Rogers writes in a rather convoluted style, using words one would expect of a Princeton PhD), but particularly for history buffs or just anyone looking for a good yet educational read!

For those who anticipate Oliver Stone's much hyped upcoming film "Alexander", this eminently readable book by the eminent historian Guy Maclean Rogers will serve as the ideal historical companion. Rogers stays close to the original sources, and gives a reasoned, balanced, and judicious assessment of this most important figure. What is most engaging about this book is Roger's willingness to assess the validity of various claims about Alexander's personal characteristics, and his historical significance. Readers of this book will be well-prepared to separate fact from fiction regarding Alexander, and will be well-rewarded.

wow! in my mind this is the best book for alexander the great.

I like this book so much cause type face is clear and big so my

eyes is not hurting after few hours reading this kind of scholarly work,and he talked about diffrent views about alexander's opinions.most alexander's biography talks about only authors own view point,but this book shows how much impact

was given to us causing alexander's campaigns...

I recommand this book to who want to know more about the greatest general of all time ALEXADER THE GREAT!

I have read over two dozen books covering Alexander - some with a very positive view on the young Macedonian conqueror (such as this title) and some with very dark and negative views about him. Being that he was a figure of pre-Christian antiquity some 2300 years ago and that very little writings and actual facts remain from that era, Alexander has thus become as much of a mythological legend as a true historical figure. Very often, the writings of historians (from ancient to modern) are mere reflections of how they perceive Alexander through their own prisms of personal values, morality and views on history. It is interesting, even outright fascinating, how this enigmatic figure elicits such a wide range of emotions and perspectives from historians and readers alike - from that of irrational idolatry and adulation to outright hostility and venomous contempt.

This book is, overall, quite favorable towards Alexander. It doesn't try to hide Alexander's faults as a human being and the war atrocities that Alexander is responsible for and for which he regretted. It is an easy book to digest compared to many other Alexander biographies, which often tend to get mired in scholarly prose and obtuse academia. The writing is clear and concise and flows in a way that is meant to educate and inform the more casual modern reader, not impress other scholars of ancient history. At the same time, it is thoroughly researched and you can tell that Rogers has a deep understanding of the era in which Alexander lived as well as before and after.

The impact of Alexander cannot be overestimated although it has become fashionable for the anti-Alexandrian school of historians and scholars to extrapolate on the negative aspects of Alexander's conquests and brutal suppression of resistance and revolt. What I'd like to ask of some of these armchair kings and generals is: What would YOU have done if you were in his position? What would you have done differently if you were just appointed king at the age of 20 and there are many around you willing to kill you and your loved ones to attain what you have? We're talking about 2300 years ago and people still kill unremittingly all over the world TODAY when it comes to the grand human pastime of attaining and wielding power.

It's so easy for historians to sit in their school offices and home dens and on some sort of a moral high chair applying the moral values of today to the constant warlike conditions of Alexander's era. If you knew you had Alexander's unruly genius for military command and tactics and you knew you could vanquish the "barbarian" enemy and impose the ideals and culture of your country, would you not have done what Alexander did? How could anyone really put himself in Alexander's shoes? How many people in today's age can even imagine what it was like to be in one of these battles wearing armor and wielding only a two-foot blade sword knowing that you could be struck down or decapitated any moment? But it's easy for us to sit in our couch or behind a computer screen and type, "I could have done better. He wasn't so great. I wouldn't have killed so many people. I'm morally superior than that."

Considering the vast power he attained and wielded over such a humongous territory in such antiquity, Alexander has to be considered one of the most generous and magnanimous monarchs of all time. He could have butchered and wiped out populations on a grand scale - but he didn't. He could have forcibly imposed Macedonian culture, religion, administration and governance on the lands he conquered - but he didn't. He always gave city-states or tribes a chance to surrender. Only when there was resistance and Macedonian lives lost would his wrath be brutal and systematically ruthless. Alexander was virtually generous to a fault to the people he conquered in many cases.

As far as Alexander's influence and impact, it's obvious that Alexander facilitated the expansion of the Roman Empire that came afterwards and the spread of Christianity. How different would the world be today if Christ was born under the domain of the Persian Empire? If you simply follow history - and this isn't hard to see - it's obvious that Alexander built the table for Christianity (as a meal) to be served. The Roman Empire set the table with the trimmings, but it was Alexander who advanced Western ideals on the Middle East through his conquests of what are now Syria, Lebanon, Israel, and Egypt. We can't go as far as to say that Alexander was responsible for Christianity, but he facilitated it so that it is what it is today. That's just a simple fact.

I heartily recommend this book to the Alexander novice as well as the Alexander buff wishing to round out his or her collection. It isn't definitive and I'd rate works from Robin Lane Fox, J.F.C. Fuller, and Peter Green higher in terms of exhaustive academia, but this one's easier and more pleasant to read through. There is a timeless mythical element to Alexander to this day and I believe that's why he is such a fascinating figure. Some of the truths will never be known, leaving us to forever ponder the details, the gaps in his story, his motives, and the intrigues of his most amazing life. Alexander is a figure who will undoubtedly be studied and debated about for as long as the human race survives. He is indeed THAT pivotal of a figure in human history.

This book is a serious attempt at another life of Alexander, perhaps to coincide with Oliver Stone's film due out later this month. But I have some difficulty with some of the claims in this book, particularly with respect to the following:

1) The notion that Alexander's life is now capable of a "balanced" and reliable biography. The truth is, much that is thought to be known about him remains conjectural. The main outline is clear, but I'm astounded by this claim to balance and objectivity. One needs only read Claude Mosse to know how thorny the problem is for a historian.

2) The idea that Alexander was somehow responsible for the spread of Christianity. (I mean, come on.)

3) The wishful thinking that sex was not an important factor in his relationship with Hephaistion. There may be no unambiguous evidence that sex was central to their friendship, but then there is no unambiguous evidence for anything about Alexander. It has been said that Alexander was never defeated except by Hephaistion's thighs. Ancient Greeks (men) of his station and profession regularly engaged in sexual behavior with members of their own sex (that's what their "symposium" was really for). And Alexander's extreme, totally out-of-line reaction to Hephaistion's death suggests (to me anyway) that Hephaistion was much more than a lover. As Alexander was used to point out, Hephaistion was also Alexander. At a minimum, that he was his Patroclus (to Alexander's Achilles) was made clear to all by Alexander himself.

4) Above all, the comparison of Alexander with Truman and Churchill because of the "ambiguity of greatness" which the author claims they have in common. I am not at all convinced that such a comparison is warranted by the facts. Truman ordered the atomic bombings in order to prevent more deaths on both the Japanese and the American sides. And yes, Churchill made some mistakes as a strategist which resulted in unnecessary deaths. But Alexander was directly and personally responsible for massacres (sometimes of civilians), tortures, forced marches, blood sacrifices (for his Hephaistion, for example), ruthless purges of his own Companions, and other atrocities which would be abhorrent by ancient or modern standards. Nothing of the kind could be attached to Truman or Churchill. Also, Alexander was always the aggressor in his career. There is no evidence that the Persians under Darius had concrete plans to conquer Alexander and occupy Macedon. Can anyone honestly tell me that Truman or Churchill started World War II? To claim that Alexander was no mass murderer does not really match his record. It is also unnecessary, I believe, to establish his historical greatness.

It is quite jarring to me to compare Alexander's "ambiguity of greatness" with that of Truman and Churchill. In my opinion, the greatness of Truman and Churchill is far less ambiguous than Alexander's. But it is also my belief that Alexander's greatness surpasses that of Truman or Churchill. If a comparison should be made at all, Alexander should have been placed next to Napoleon Bonaparte, who unlike Alexander was defeated not by alcohol (if Alexander wasn't murdered by poisoned wine he would in any case have been killed by too much of it) but by his own lack of restraint, but whose long-term legacy is as enduring as Alexander's.

Alexander is known as "the Great" for three reasons: first, the extent of his conquests, which were incredibly large by ancient standards (esp. for one individual); second, his military prowess, which includes not only his personal physical bravery but also the fact that his stunning brilliance as field commander resulted in an unbroken record of victories (except for the self-inflicted disaster in the Gedrosian desert); and finally, also for his personal charm, for which there are some legendary examples (until that quality began to be destroyed by increasing irrationality, tyrannical tendency, and advanced alcoholism). That he treated the Persian royal ladies with respect was unexpected of someone in his situation at that time. A man so dominated psychologically by his own mother could hardly have been accused of immunity to feminine intelligence. But for some reason the author immediately jumps to the conclusion that Alexander was therefore a proto-feminist.

But none of these can whitewash the fact that Alexander was the undisputed cause of much suffering and many deaths, none of which can be said to have prevented more of the same. To quote Peter Green, who seems to me a much more balanced historian, "It is idle to palliate this central truth, to pretend that he dreamed, in some mysterious fashion, of wading through rivers of blood and violence to achieve the Brotherhood of Man by raping an entire continent. He spent his life, with legendary success, in the pursuit of personal glory, Achillean 'kleos'... The empire he built collapsed the moment he was gone; he came as a conqueror and the work he wrought was destruction." Note the term "central truth." This is a view which the Cambridge scholar Paul Cartledge (whose new biography of Alexander I have enjoyed) would probably not disagree with. Alexander was indeed great, but not for the reasons Prof. Rogers imagines, I'm afraid. High-minded ideals of the sort sometimes attributed to him (as in this book) would have seemed totally inscrutable to the real Alexander, while his own soldiers were motivated by even baser things, such as loot. I need hardly add that to the eyes of Genghis Khan the "continent" Alexander "raped" - roughly speaking, what lies between the Adriatic and the Indus - would have seemed like an absurd pebble. The Mongols at their apex owned everything east of the Black Sea including the Black Sea itself, the Ukraine, all of Russia, much of eastern Turkey, the Caucasus, the whole Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), the northern coasts of the Persian Gulf and the entire Persia, all of Central Asia, the Hindu Kush, Tibet, all of China right down to Hong Kong, and the complete Korean peninsula. Only the Arabian deserts, the Indian subcontinent, southeast Asia and Japan remained out of their grasp. They wiped out the Germans (the Teutonic Knights) and cleaned up the Poles in battle in Hungary. They turned back from Europe only because their great khan suddenly died. Their troop strength was often 1 to 100 of their enemies. Yet their conquests last almost two centuries, while Alexander's barely survived his own lifetime. Genghis began the war and, unlike Alexader's satraps, his successors continued his work. The amount of land and the number of people under their rule was hugely out of proportion to their homeland, and the ratio between the homebase and the conquests compares very favorably with Alexander's Macedon and his empire. Alexander got as far as Pakistan but not even India proper. Alexander was great, certainly, but not nearly as great as this book's author likes to claim even judging by the crudest measure of the acreage of land touched by the hoofs of his horses. (And where Alexander rode big, beautiful steeds worthy of racing, Genghis had only ponies for his job.)

This book reminds one of Sir William Tarn's influential but flawed biography - without, however, the authoritativeness which Tarn, who wrote the chapters on Alexander in the prestigious "Cambridge Ancient History," for too long commanded. The resemblance with Tarn's "League of Nations Alexander" is striking. Both are hagiographies, reflecting the authors' certain personal views of current events but inevitably compromising their objectivity. It is significant that Alexander's conquests included modern Iraq, and that Tarn was a Victorian colonialist in search of a justification. Peter Green observes that Tarn's approach is "totally bankrupt in principle, if still a most impressive achievement over mattes of detail." Paul Cartledge calls Tarn's view "exploded" by the evidence. The Oxford scholar Robin Lane Fox has even harsher words: Tarn's interpretation was "persistently mistaken both in method and evidence." I don't claim to refute Prof. Rogers in every matter of detail. But I do question his general approach to and overall interpretation of Alexander, in much the same way that Tarn's own is now thoroughly questioned by other Alexandrine specialists. To imagine that the ruthless conqueror who torched Persepolis was a liberal progressive who intended to spread his gentlemanly ideals wherever he went strikes me as too politically motivated for comfort. It's all right for a journalist to do so, but not for a historian.