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ryner's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
medium-paced
3.0
In this newer biography of one of history's most well-known names, Everitt provides a sweeping narration of Alexander's life, from his birth as the son of Macedonian King Philip and coming into his own power upon Philip's murder, to what he is best known for: vanquishing Darius, the Great King of Persia, and subsequently conquering all peoples from the Mediterranean to India.
I became concerned during the first few chapters that this was going to be partly a work of speculative nonfiction, which I struggle with, but it eventually found more or less stable footing in the historical record. (I'm also willing to be more forgiving when the time period we're talking about is 2000+ years ago.) The writing is effective and strives to provide balance in areas of uncertainty. As someone not naturally drawn to military history, I found the narrative just engaging enough to keep me interested. I'm not sure any new conclusions can be drawn surrounding his puzzling death at only thirty-three years of age, but Everitt lays out multiple plausible scenarios. Understandably, Alexander's staggering military finesse and accomplishments take center stage in this comprehensive history, though occasionally my eyes would glaze over keeping individual battles and their locations straight. To have completely dominated the known world by the age of thirty is an incredible feat, and it's incredible that we know as much as we do about this enigmatic leader. All that said, it's eye-opening and sobering how perspective changes through time. Today, we would consider Alexander a war criminal.
I became concerned during the first few chapters that this was going to be partly a work of speculative nonfiction, which I struggle with, but it eventually found more or less stable footing in the historical record. (I'm also willing to be more forgiving when the time period we're talking about is 2000+ years ago.) The writing is effective and strives to provide balance in areas of uncertainty. As someone not naturally drawn to military history, I found the narrative just engaging enough to keep me interested. I'm not sure any new conclusions can be drawn surrounding his puzzling death at only thirty-three years of age, but Everitt lays out multiple plausible scenarios. Understandably, Alexander's staggering military finesse and accomplishments take center stage in this comprehensive history, though occasionally my eyes would glaze over keeping individual battles and their locations straight. To have completely dominated the known world by the age of thirty is an incredible feat, and it's incredible that we know as much as we do about this enigmatic leader. All that said, it's eye-opening and sobering how perspective changes through time. Today, we would consider Alexander a war criminal.
spacestationtrustfund's review against another edition
1.0
Well, the relief on the cover isn't Alexander III, it's Publius Cornelius Scipio, agnomen Africanus, which is not exactly an auspicious start. How do you screw up that badly?! It wouldn't have been that difficult to grab a photograph of a statue or bas-relief of the actual Alexander III and paint it blue. Here, I even did that for you:
There you go. Now he's vapourwave.
I had a great time reading this book, but mostly because I know a hell of a lot about Alexander III and I love correcting misinformation. I won't say reading this book was a waste of time, but I wouldn't recommend it to an historian or academic. For a layperson, however, the book is fine. The primary issue I had is one I have with most biographers of Alexander III or the time period: presentism. "He deserves to be measured against the values of his own time and not of ours," Everitt proclaims, continuing that his "intention is to understand rather than to praise or to condemn." And yet, despite superficially eschewing condemnation or celebration, Everitt instead moralises Alexander's actions in his own way, ascribing concepts and beliefs to actions that existed in a drastically different time. Inevitable, I guess, but still unfortunate. I'll show you what I mean.
Periodically throughout the book Everitt would reassert the claim that Alexander III was not interested in sexual intercourse, such as this paragraph towards the beginning:
Then there's this statement:
Slightly further on, Everitt talked about Achilles and Patroclus, and attempted to fit them into the pederastic dynamic—an insane decision, considering that Achilles and Patroclus were the example of two adult men in a romantic and/or sexual relationship; the point was that they were equals. I'm honestly floored by how badly Everitt misinterpreted this dynamic.
I think Everitt in general has a tendency towards presentism, which is to be expected to an extent, and he even acknowledges as much repeatedly throughout the book, but it influences his opinions of everyone. Most notably, it influences his opinions of women and those who are, to put it simply, not heterosexual. At multiple points during the book, I was reminded of the unfortunately common tendency to desexualise historical queer figures, often via claiming celibacy or asexuality, presumably as a means of making them more palatable. I'm not saying that this necessarily fits perfectly with Everitt's claims, but it felt uncomfortably familiar. I was also reminded of the people who proclaim that homosexuality is inherently sexual and therefore inappropriate for children, viz. Everitt's assertion that, even if Alexander were homosexual, he wasn't actually fucking men, so it's okay then! This was very reminiscent of the whole "I'm not homophobic, just don't kiss in front of me" argument. Again, I am by no means saying that these are Everitt's beliefs, nor that he intended to imply such things, but the similarities were impossible to ignore.
There are also flat-out inaccuracies in the book. One of the most egregious is in this paragraph:
Here's the original quote:
There you go. Now he's vapourwave.
I had a great time reading this book, but mostly because I know a hell of a lot about Alexander III and I love correcting misinformation. I won't say reading this book was a waste of time, but I wouldn't recommend it to an historian or academic. For a layperson, however, the book is fine. The primary issue I had is one I have with most biographers of Alexander III or the time period: presentism. "He deserves to be measured against the values of his own time and not of ours," Everitt proclaims, continuing that his "intention is to understand rather than to praise or to condemn." And yet, despite superficially eschewing condemnation or celebration, Everitt instead moralises Alexander's actions in his own way, ascribing concepts and beliefs to actions that existed in a drastically different time. Inevitable, I guess, but still unfortunate. I'll show you what I mean.
Periodically throughout the book Everitt would reassert the claim that Alexander III was not interested in sexual intercourse, such as this paragraph towards the beginning:
His somewhat ambiguous private life has attracted more than its fair share of attention and he has become a gay icon (although he was not much interested in sex with any gender).We don't actually know that Alexander was uninterested in sex in general; we only have anecdotes that he wasn't interested in sex with women. Certainly this would suggest that he was homosexual or at least bisexual, as bisexuality was openly and frequently practiced in Macedon as well as the other Greek city-states, but Everitt slyly avoids committing to this. Understandable, were Everitt to take the same perspective when referencing heterosexual figures... but he doesn't, such as a passage a bit later on when he states, "Sex [in pederastic relationships] was not compulsory, and many straight young Greeks doubtless heaved a sigh of relief when they were able to graduate to marriage and heterosexuality." This is uncomfortable for many reasons, but chief among them is the fact that, if we can't call Alexander homosexual despite all the evidence of it, then we can't call people heterosexual either. You can't have both.
Then there's this statement:
[...] many Greeks disliked permanent adult same-sex relationships.Ah... sort of? Not necessarily. By no means would I ever advocate that queer relationships in ancient Greece were fully accepted, because that would be a naïve and inane argument, but same-sex relationships (between men) were relatively accepted—as long as those men also had wives and, more importantly, sons. Marriage and love were not mutually inclusive throughout most of history; heterosexual marriage and procreation was the expected behaviour, as siring sons would lead to the continuation of your family line, which was the ideal goal. Outside of having sons, men could have whatever relationships between adult men, as it was believed (in a truly impressive display of misogyny) that women were not capable of the same sort of affection and intelligence; hence: same-sex relationships between men were the most highly valued, when romantic or intellectual. The issue arises when sex was involved, due to the whole erastes/eromenos conundrum, and the belief that penetration was masculine while being penetrated was effeminate, etc., so in sum: it's more nuanced than this half-a-sentence summary would have it seem.
(They did value liaisons between teenaged boys and young adult males; these were partly educational and partly erotic in character, but were temporary and usually gave way after a few years to close friendships and heterosexual marriage.)Again: close, but not quite. First of all, the word "liaison" is a bit simplistic; just say "relationships," it's not like these were clandestine hook-ups! Second, by no means were these exclusive to "young adult males," but rather any adult man + a young boy (typically between the ages of 12-18 or so). "Close friendships" is also a simplistic view; some of these relationships did indeed turn into friendships, some ended with no further contact (as they were often more educational than romantic), and some continued to be romantic but not sexual. The difference between these is difficult, nay impossible, to discern. Heterosexual marriage did not preclude same-sex "liaisons" (if that's the word we're using), since there was little to no expectation that the husband would be faithful to his wife in any way other than not fathering sons with anyone but her (or, if polygamy was practiced, any of his other wives). Immediately after this, perhaps only two or three pages later, Everitt described at length the men of the Sacred Band of Thebes. That is, to be clear, a group of 150 same-sex couples selected for their close relationship. Buddy, what age do you think the soldiers in the Sacred Band were? Because they certainly weren't teenage boys. They were adults in long-term same-sex relationships.
So far as having sex was concerned, Alexander was incurious. He showed no signs of attraction to women. This does not necessarily imply a particular orientation. Terms such as homosexuality or heterosexuality had not yet been invented. For him and his contemporaries, sex was what you did, not what you were.We don't know for certain Alexander's specific sexual orientation, but we know he was attracted to and had sex with men (at least two over the course of his life) and displayed little to no interest in women. The issue here is not that Everitt is reluctant to call Alexander homosexual (although not calling him "queer" is odd enough on its own), but rather that Everitt does not apply this same treatment to those presumed to be heterosexual.
Olympias and Philip were worried about their son. They feared that he would grow up into an effeminate man, in our terms a queen [...]. They paid [a prostitute] to go to bed with Alexander and take his virginity. His refusal to cooperate may be ascribed to a weak libido, but it is just as likely to have been due to irritation. Few boys like parents to choose their first date. But Olympias was nothing if not persistent and often begged her son to sleep with the girl, albeit without success."Queen"? This book was published in 2019. As for the prostitute, her name was Kallixeina—Καλλίξεῖνᾰ in Ancient Greek, from κάλλος (beautiful) + ξένος (foreign)—and there's no information about her outside of this story.
For the simplest explanation of his behavior we could do worse than consider Alexander’s sexual orientation. [Alexander and Hephaestion] fell for each other and were inseparable for the rest of their lives. It is hard to believe that there was not a sexual component in the relationship. But if there was, it will have been short-lived, for Plutarch reports that Alexander “used to say that sleep and sex, more than anything else, reminded him of his mortality. By this he meant that tiredness and pleasure both proceed from the same human weakness.”Just because Alexander apparently said that sleep and sex reminded him of mortality in a way he disliked, that doesn't mean he never had sex any more than it means he never slept. Alexander also had a habit of oversleeping: the day scheduled to fight Darius, he overslept well into the afternoon, causing many to worry this was an ill omen for Macedon. Alexander was unbothered, saying simply that victory was already his—since he finally had the chance to fight Darius, instead of chasing him around.
Slightly further on, Everitt talked about Achilles and Patroclus, and attempted to fit them into the pederastic dynamic—an insane decision, considering that Achilles and Patroclus were the example of two adult men in a romantic and/or sexual relationship; the point was that they were equals. I'm honestly floored by how badly Everitt misinterpreted this dynamic.
The most famous pederastic pair were Alexander’s hero Achilles, the protagonist of the Iliad, and Patroclus. They were widely recognized as lovers, but there was some doubt in ancient times as to which of them was the erastes and which the eromenos. Plato has one of the speakers in his dialogue The Symposium (or The Drinking Party), clear the matter up.No he doesn't! That whole conversation is an argument with no clear resolution! In fact, there's essentially never a clear resolution in Plato's dialogues, because that's the point of them. (I'm also setting aside my issue with Everitt's assertion that Achilles is the protagonist of the Iliad. He is very much not.) But anyway, Everitt goes on to quote from the Symposium (I don't know which translation):
"Aeschylus [the tragic playwright], by the way, is quite wrong when he says [in his play The Myrmidons] that Achilles was the erastes of Patroclus. Achilles was the more beautiful of the two—indeed he was the most beautiful of all the heroes—and he was still beardless and, according to Homer, much younger than Patroclus."but the point is that the speaker here is wrong. Homer doesn't say what the age difference between the two is, if any; Achilles was beardless, yes, but he it's likely he shaved—uncommon, but not unheard of. The whole point of the argument in the Symposium (and in Phaedrus, and other ancient dialogues) was that people couldn't tell which was which, because they were equals, not part of a presupposed pederastic dynamic. I hate it here!
We must assume that the lovers had graduated some while previously into an adult friendship.No we mustn't! And, no matter how you look at it, the word "graduated" is an uncomfortable one in this context, the implication being that a platonic homosocial relationship is inherently superior to a romantic homosexual one.
Alexander saw himself as a latter-day Achilles not only for his bravery and skill as a warrior, but also because he and Hephaestion were eromenos and erastes on the model of Achilles and Patroclus. It is a reasonable supposition that his schoolfellow was the older of the two, albeit only by a small margin. It appears that the liaison merely mimicked pederasty while being closer to a modern conjunction of more or less coeval partners.Man, you are so close to understanding that they mimicked Achilles and Patroclus because neither relationship fit into the expected pederastic dynamic but was rather a relationship between two adult men, lifelong friends, who saw each other as equals.
I think Everitt in general has a tendency towards presentism, which is to be expected to an extent, and he even acknowledges as much repeatedly throughout the book, but it influences his opinions of everyone. Most notably, it influences his opinions of women and those who are, to put it simply, not heterosexual. At multiple points during the book, I was reminded of the unfortunately common tendency to desexualise historical queer figures, often via claiming celibacy or asexuality, presumably as a means of making them more palatable. I'm not saying that this necessarily fits perfectly with Everitt's claims, but it felt uncomfortably familiar. I was also reminded of the people who proclaim that homosexuality is inherently sexual and therefore inappropriate for children, viz. Everitt's assertion that, even if Alexander were homosexual, he wasn't actually fucking men, so it's okay then! This was very reminiscent of the whole "I'm not homophobic, just don't kiss in front of me" argument. Again, I am by no means saying that these are Everitt's beliefs, nor that he intended to imply such things, but the similarities were impossible to ignore.
There are also flat-out inaccuracies in the book. One of the most egregious is in this paragraph:
A late Roman writer was not far wrong when he observed: “Alexander the Great would not have become great if Xenophon had never existed.”A... late Roman writer...? Do you mean Eunapius, who wrote Βίοι Φιλοσόφων καὶ Σοφιστῶν? If that title isn't enough clue as to his ethnicity, I worry for you.
Here's the original quote:
μέγας Ἀλέξανδρος οὐκ ἂν ἐγένετο μέγας, εἰ μὴ Ξενοφῶν
great / Alexandros / not / [conditional particle] / become / great, / if / not / XenophonThat is, "Great Alexandros would not have become great, if not for Xenophon." How did this make it past an editor?!
baddogjordan's review against another edition
5.0
I really enjoyed this. I'd been looking for a comprehensive summary of Alexander's life. This was it. I'm surprised there aren't more movies/shows/etc about him. A good, long dive.
duchessofreadin's review against another edition
5.0
Who was Alexander the Great? Go beyond the myth, the legends, and the folklore to gain an insight into the man himself, and the life that he lived.
This book was amazingly written! It was very detailed, going through his entire life, and wrapping up with his death. While we may never know what killed Alexander the Great for sure, the author makes an educated guess, with the information that was/is available.
If you love history, add this to your list now!
This book was amazingly written! It was very detailed, going through his entire life, and wrapping up with his death. While we may never know what killed Alexander the Great for sure, the author makes an educated guess, with the information that was/is available.
If you love history, add this to your list now!
imaginereader's review against another edition
4.0
Update 10/15/2020
I'm actually applying to colleges right now, and for one of my supplemental essays, I got to write a twist on history, and this book was so helpful as I chose to write it on Alexander the Great. (Just wanted to add this because I thought it was cool and this book really helped me out.)
Original Review
This is a biography of the life of Alexander III of Macedon.
“When someone asked him: ‘To whom do you leave the kingdom?’ he replied: ‘To the strongest.'”
I have not read any other biographies on Alexander the Great so I can’t say how it would compare to others, but I did enjoy this one. It wasn’t too long but it was still packed full of details on his life. The book didn’t solely focus on Alexander’s campaigns, but also discussed the culture of Macedonia, his parents’ lives, and his childhood, to set the scene on how Alexander rose to power.
Overall, the writing was nicely paced and I thought this was a great overview of the conquerer’s life.
I'm actually applying to colleges right now, and for one of my supplemental essays, I got to write a twist on history, and this book was so helpful as I chose to write it on Alexander the Great. (Just wanted to add this because I thought it was cool and this book really helped me out.)
Original Review
This is a biography of the life of Alexander III of Macedon.
“When someone asked him: ‘To whom do you leave the kingdom?’ he replied: ‘To the strongest.'”
I have not read any other biographies on Alexander the Great so I can’t say how it would compare to others, but I did enjoy this one. It wasn’t too long but it was still packed full of details on his life. The book didn’t solely focus on Alexander’s campaigns, but also discussed the culture of Macedonia, his parents’ lives, and his childhood, to set the scene on how Alexander rose to power.
Overall, the writing was nicely paced and I thought this was a great overview of the conquerer’s life.