Customer Reviews

Alexander the Great's Art of Strategy: The Timeless Lessons of History's Greatest Empire Builder

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The flow of this book is in alignment with the thought process of business executives. The USP of this book is it has historical pieces coupled along with strong analysis to churn out wisdom for leaders as well as strategists in every sphere.

May be a few historical points are not spot on in this book. However, the readers of this book should not be in pursuit of history but wisdom acquisition from the life of the greatest conqueror of all time, Alexander the Great, who never lost a war.

This book makes a close analysis into what made Alexander so special. Apart from being gifted with special traits of a natural leader, Alexander was able to make huge magnitude of impact during his short life due to his forward thinking father, Philips of Macedonian. Aristotle, mentor of Alexander, helped him develop a strong analytic framework of mind and appreciation for looking at issues from various perspectives. The book mentions that the "think global act local" approach was first promulgated by Alexander. As one reads on, one will understand how and why many leaders / strategists (in various spheres) over the centuries have been inspired by Alexander the Great.

The problem with this book is that it simplifies and doesnt crasp some of the true lessons we could learn from Alexander.
However, the book gives a excellent account about his life and battles. I think that you should buy this book if you are intrested in alexander from a learning standpoint. I learned a few things from this book! But if you want to learn alexanders leadership style, then try find another book.

Then this is for you. While working on the WEF competitive reports with Besife Tonwe, we got into a discussion about how despite all the technology advances human nature has changed little in 3000 years. I thought not. Besife's claim was that read Niall Ferguson's House of Rothschild and you pretty much have the narratives of the 1929 crash and the 2000 tech wreck - except they take place between 1798 and 1848. Bose's book was the test and confirms his theory. Rats.

Alexander the Great's Art of Strategy is a book with multiple layers that will appeal to different senses and touch different nerves in the same reader at different times. On one level, it is a pure coming-of-age tale about a young boy who sets out to conquer the world (and just happens to succeed). How could a youth from the outlying and much disparaged province of Macedonia conquer Sparta and then rule all the Greek city states with power and authority-and then use that as a springboard to conquer the mighty Persians? Mentoring by Artistotle from the age of 13 certainly helped, but clearly Alexander's innate leadership skills-fueled by an ego and tempered by wisdom-were his calling card through life.

Alexander's leadership skills were not all instinctual or natural. Much of his success was grounded in a strategic approach to every battle, every campaign, every conquest, which gave him and his men the conviction that they could out-think and out-perform the enemy at every turn. What makes Alexander's strategic military thinking of value to today's business leaders was that many of his actions are grounded in basic logistics. How do you bring 3,000 men with supply animals and cargo trains across the Hindu Kush mountains? By establishing forward supply bases so that the men can move without carrying supplies. How will men react if their ships are burned and they can't afford to lose in battle to the Persians? They will attack with vengeance.

It is the study of Alexander's leadership styles-his various penchants for boldness, simplicity, quickness, surprise, willingness to embrace new cultures, and a willingness to attack with force but an aversion to inflicting unnecessary pain and destruction-that is the most engaging aspect of the book. In each case, mini case studies from the present business (or military) world show how Alexander's timeless strategies have been and can be applied to gain a competitive advantage.

Finally, the book is a sweeping historical tale that covers a mere 20 years, but follows Alexander's inexorable surge from Greece to Egypt to Persia, across Afghanistan and into India. He dies of natural causes on the way back to Macedonia at the age of 32, his men weary from years away from home, but laden with riches and multicultural inheritances and leaving behind a legacy that exists to this day. Reading this book against the backdrop of current events in the Mideast, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India, one longs for a world leader with the political skills of an Alexander the Great.

This is a beautifully written book, with a great story and numerous lessons in strategy. There is a certain mystery to the book because Bose keeps you guessing as to how he is going to tie the story of Alexander that he is telling with the lessons in business and politics. I had great fun reading the book. I especially enjoyed the chapter where he talks about the seige of Tyre,-considered the greatest in world history and ties it with globalization. A terrific book.

In my opinion the book does a VERY SOLID job presenting Alexander the Great and the use of his strategy. One of the strentghs of the book is the relative ease to which you can cover the material. Very practical in life and business applications. Nice Work!

Partha Bose has crafted an impressive volume that stands equally well as a work of interpretive history or as a contemporary guide to effective business strategy. Like any lessons-of-history-applied-to-business volume, it works to find a delicate balance between past and present. Its practical business examples range from Honda to IBM to the war in Afghanistan (a land which Alexander was the last to conquer successfully). Fortunately, Bose avoids the temptation to give the facts of history short shrift. Do not expect to find an answer about whether to do that big acquisition deal. (You'll never establish your own business empire if you get too caught up in the details!) Instead, this volume brings to life the classic lessons of leadership that march across the eons, unstoppable, unchanging, unchallenged, like the Macedonian legion itself.We highly recommend this book to executives, strategists, history buffs and all those who harbor a secret desire to rule the world!

A surprisingly entertaining read. The author uses Alexander's strategy as a jumping-off place for discourses on topics as diverse as GE's succession strategy and Tiger Woods's charisma.

An excellent analysis of a young Macedonian leader whose leadership skills is still being practised in modern times. A fine piece of journalism, in which Partha weaves a perfect bridge between two eras.
A must read for young aspiring strategists for all walks of life. An exhaustive bibliography sets the bar for fine research and documentation which enables one to understand the analysis.
I highly recommend this book. A fun read too.

I agree with some reviewers that this book isn't a serious scholarly work and the connections between Alexander's strategies and military/political conquests and the strategies used in the modern corporate world tend to be disjointed here and there, but still, it's good reading and it forces the reader to think about the similarities or simply discard what the author sees as such. It takes imagination on the part of the reader to analyze what Alexander had achieved and apply it to our daily modern lives, but Alexander certainly does have many things to teach us in the areas of strategy and the application of tactics and execution.

Some of the examples that Bose bring up make sense and show some connection to what Alexander did while others make you roll your eyes somewhat and go, "Yeah, okay, if you say so." Nonetheless, the book is fun to read and much faster to go through than most Alexander biographies as Alexander's achievements and strategies implemented are applied to things that we can relate to more readily. We are not constantly bombarded with names and places that we can't remember or put our fingers on as so many Alexander biographies tend to do. I finished this book in little over a day and had good time reading it and I'm sure I'll refer back to it more for enjoyment than anything else.

There is certainly much to be learned through the study of Alexander's remarkable life and his near-mythical achievements in such a short period of time. This is a good primer in that area although I would certainly not recommend it to anyone as the definitive book about what Alexander was all about and this book doesn't purport to be as such. That's what makes it good fun reading. Alexander was certainly a strategist of the highest order although he seems to have been guided as much by keen natural instincts as by highly-developed intellect. Obviously, some of these things simply cannot be taught. Still, the conjectures are interesting and fun to ponder and I recommend this book to the Alexander buff who already has a good well-rounded collection and wants to add a "fun" book for easy reading.