More than two millennia have passed since Alexander the Great built an empire that stretched to every corner of the ancient world, from the backwater kingdom of Macedonia to the Hellenic world, Persia, and ultimately to India—all before his untimely death at age thirty-three. Anthony Everitt judges Alexander’s life against the criteria of his own age and considers all his contradictions.
Everitt’s is the latest and one of the most engaging [biographers of Alexander] ... the immediacy of the storytelling, gives Everitt’s account its infectious sense of narrative momentum. Alexander the Great won’t unseat the scholarship of magnificent Alexander biographies like those by Robin Lane Fox or Peter Green. But its energy is unflagging, including the verve with which it tackles that teased final mystery about the specific cause of Alexander’s death. Even readers well-versed in Alexander’s story will be fascinated all over again.
Everitt, an expert storyteller, has written a riveting narrative that restores Alexander to his own context—and takes a whack at solving the remaining mysteries ... [Everitt] takes us on a spirited passage through the ancient world, from the Balkans to South Asia, with effective explanations of battles and sieges and a useful description of the ordinary Greek soldier’s experience ... Everitt is particularly perceptive about the impact of Alexander’s charismatic parents, as well as the snake-pit royal court where he was raised.
Anthony Everitt's understanding of the world of Alexander the Great does better at solving the mystery of the man than in solving his death. The prose does well as education and entertainment although the author acts informal at times, such as some of his terminology and in the chapter headings.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay[/caption]
