About:
Alexander the Great: His Life and His Mysterious Death by Anthony Everitt is a biography of the famous conqueror. Mr. Everitt is an English writer, professor, and former Secretary-General of the Arts Council of Great Britain.
- 496 pages
- Publisher: Random House
- Language:English
- ISBN-10:0425286525
My rating for Alexander the Great: His Life and His Mysterious Death —4
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Thoughts:
Great battles have always been of interest to scholars, young and old. Alexander the Great is one of those enigmatic figures which have captured the public’s imagination for centuries. In his book, Alexander the Great: His Life and His Mysterious Death author Anthony Everitt paints of picture of his subject with all his strengths and weaknesses, showing a flawed human and not a godlike figure – as Alexander himself would have liked us to see. The book shows the several personas of Alexander, his flaws and capabilities committing both acts of enormous kindness and generosity, as well as incredible cruelty.
This book is well researched and gives out relevant background for the reader to understand the times and the man. There is a lot of cultural information on the time which Alexander grew up in, the Greeks, Babylonians and, of course, the Macedonians.
I learned a lot from the book, it was interesting, surprising and brought up several points which I found fascinating. The author provided details about Alexander’s personal life, and tries to figure out how he died. Mr. Everitt offered some opinions, but mostly stayed with the facts and offered supporting evidence.
At times, however, the book felt bogged down, almost as if the author abandoned the readability of the book in favor of that of an academic article. I didn’t mind finding out what type of soldiers were on the battle field, who the commanders were and their relationship to Alexander (mostly close childhood friends or accomplished leaders), but some of it felt out of place, almost as if the author wanted to include this information but couldn’t quite figure out how.
This book is a raw portrait of this legendary king. While certainly not a definitive biography, it doe keep the reader engaged throughout.
Buy Alexander the Great: His Life and His Mysterious Deathfrom Amazon.com*
More Books by Anthony Everitt*
Zohar — Man of la Book
Disclaimer: I got this book for free.
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