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    Alexander the Great
    Alexander the Great
    Alexander the Great
    Audiobook12 hours

    Alexander the Great

    Written by Philip Freeman

    Narrated by Michael Page

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    Alexander was born into the royal family of Macedonia, the kingdom that would soon rule over Greece. Tutored as a boy by Aristotle, Alexander had an inquisitive mind that would serve him well when he faced formidable obstacles during his military campaigns. Shortly after taking command of the army, he launched an invasion of the Persian empire, and continued his conquests as far south as the deserts of Egypt and as far east as the mountains of present-day Pakistan and the plains of India.

    In his lively and authoritative biography of Alexander, Philip Freeman describes Alexander's astonishing achievements and provides insight into the mercurial character of the great conqueror. Alexander could be petty and magnanimous, cruel and merciful, impulsive and farsighted. Above all, he was ferociously, intensely competitive and could not tolerate losing-which he rarely did. As Freeman explains, without Alexander, the influence of Greece on the ancient world would surely not have been as great as it was, even if his motivation was not to spread Greek culture for beneficial purposes but instead to unify his empire.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMar 21, 2017
    ISBN9781515989264
    Author

    Philip Freeman

    Philip Freeman is the Fletcher Jones Chair of Western Culture at Pepperdine University and was formerly professor of classics at Luther College and Washington University. He earned the first joint PhD in classics and Celtic studies from Harvard University, and has been a visiting scholar at the Harvard Divinity School, the American Academy in Rome, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, and the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, DC. He is the author of several books including Alexander the Great, St. Patrick of Ireland, Julius Caesar, and Oh My Gods. Visit him at PhilipFreemanBooks.com.

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    Reviews for Alexander the Great

    4.5/5

    110 ratings10 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This was a great overview of the life Alexander the Great…his influences are with us today and there are leaders in the world who’d like to be known as the second coming, so to speak.

      As the great Georg Hegel said, “ if man learns anything from history, it is that man learns nothing from it.” We ignore Alexander,his life and times , at our own peril.
    • 5/5
      Wow this book is good. I dont usually bother writing reviews or ratings but Ive enjoyed every minute of this. Narrator voice and pacing made it an easy listen. The story was written... in story format. It flowed and cast a spotlight on Alexander that made me feel like I understood him. The modern world is a decededed from the Greeks. A lot of time has passed but Alexander the Great isn't as foreign as other characters in history.

      I've done hard hikes in crappy situations when I was fighting wildfires. I thought I was tough but Alexander and his army went through hell willingly. He won some battles simply because of inhuman effort. Impressive.
    • 4/5
      Well written. It's a good synopsis of Alexander's life, but as the author freely admits at the introduction there are better academic books out there. If you know nothing about him and are just getting started, this is a fine jumping off point.
    • 5/5
      It was interesting for someone like me who only has passing knowledge of Alexander. I think this also would do well for children 10 and up who are intellectually curious.
    • 4/5
      As with his other biographies, the author has a simple and straightforward writing style which makes the narrative flow smoothly. Given the scope of Alexander‘s momentous achievements, it is easy to become bogged down in the detail of his journeys. However, the author strikes a good balance – he narrates Alexander‘s life and times with sufficient specificity, but maintains the reader’s attention.An excellent first foray for those interested in Alexander. For those with more knowledge, the book does not present any new or novel concepts, but is still a worthwhile read.
    • 5/5
      Just a great read, period. Doesn't matter the genre, Phillip Freeman has crafted one of the best biographies/histories that I have read to-date. I really reads like a work of fiction, it is lucid and the prose is excellent. It is readable for anyone (well anyone high school and older) and for being of ancient material, it is well researched. Just a great job by the author and a fun book to read. I kept thinking, this is a story that HBO should make a mini series about...everything about Alexander was just over-the-top. Highly recommended for anyone!
    • 4/5
      Philip Freeman has here provided a popular biography of Alexander that makes is accessible to a public library audience without offending a snob. He said he was writing a narrative, not an analysis, and he does. One odd effect is that the reader seems to connect with Alexander the royal tourist as the Macedonian rube arrives at the great Eastern cities and gapes at their wonders. Freeman judges him by the standards of his time and doesn’t find him better or worse morally. The standards of the time, it is understood, included destroying the lives, often literally, of thousands of civilians who trying to live their lives. What was exceptional about him was his genius as a general, his ambition, and his impact. Freeman surprised me twice when discussing the latter. He believes that Greek culture might have been another cultural backwater if Alexander hadn’t spread it as a military necessity. (Freeman trucks no nonsense about Alexander the cultural ambassador.) And he believes that Christianity couldn’t have spread throughout the Roman Empire if the use of “Alexander’s Greek” hadn’t been widespread.
    • 4/5
      I read a lot of biographies. I think many times, history is best learned and understood through studying the people that make it.This biography of Alexander the Great is quite different from most that I read. Instead of a well footnoted (it does have end notes), scholarly presentation, this is very informally written. In some ways, it makes it more readable, in others, however, I find it detracts and sometimes distracts.Writing biographies of ancient personages is a tricky business. Sometimes there is very little source material. In others, what source material exists cannot be certified as accurate. That is certainly the case here, where the sources many times conflict markedly. At other times, supernatural forces are credited.This account does give a nice historical timeline and includes a handy map which tracks Alexander’s campaign through the Middle East, Persia, the Hindu Kush and Indus basin. It introduces all the main characters in his life and doesn’t engage in hagiography.The best biographers, such as David McCollough, Ron Chernow and Walter Isaacson produce impeccably researched works that are both academically rigid, yet perfectly readable. Of course, their subjects did not live 300 years before the birth of Christ. Anyone looking for a somewhat informal treatment of the life and campaigns of Alexander the Great could probably do worse.
    • 3/5
      A nice biography of Alexander the Great. Classics professor Philip Freeman keeps it readable; no footnotes, although there’s a page-indexed section on sources in the end matter. Freeman is always careful to note where the ancient authors disagree on some aspect of Alexander’s career – which is fairly often – and although willing to speculate on some of the controversial aspects (for example, did Alexander and his mother Olympias conspire to murder his father, Philip II) he doesn’t try to make a personal case for anything. Maps of the Aegean and the Persian Empire (although none of individual battles); a plate section is mostly photographs of the modern appearance of important sites.
    • 5/5
      This is a fantastic book and fascinating biography of one of history's greatest men, and certainly one of the greatest military minds to have ever existed. I thought I knew a bit about Alexander the Great. I was wrong. This book is incredibly comprehensive, while remaining reader-friendly and retaining the reader's interest. I never knew just how damn BIG Alexander's empire was! Having read about Darius of Persia, a number of the Romans, Genghis Khan, the Moors, Ottomans, Hitler's Germany, Stalin and the Warsaw Pact territories, Mao, and so many others, I've come to the conclusion that Alexander the Great conquered and ruled over the greatest (in terms of geography, logistics, etc.) empire the world has ever seen. Previously it had been Darius and the great Persian Empire, but Alexander conquered that enemy and extended the realms of his empire from western and northern Europe, eastern and southern Europe, through the Middle East, virtually all of North Africa, all the way through Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and even throughout India! And he did ALL of this before turning age 32, which he never reached as he died shortly before that date. Indeed, Alexander the Great can probably lay claim to have been THE greatest, or certainly one of the world's very greatest, leader the world has ever seen, and in the shortest period of time! Did he turn out to be the most influential? No, that was Jesus, followed by Mohammad. But he spread Greek civilization and culture throughout virtually all of the known world, which impacted much of history for centuries after his death. It was because of him that the later "greatest" empire -- the Roman Empire -- communicated globally largely in Greek, looked up to the Greeks, continued to circulate their Hellenic culture through the Roman world, why the New Testament was written in Greek, why centuries of human history were recorded in Greek, and so much more. If you're remotely interested in human history, cultural history, western civilization, and military history, this is a book not to miss. Most definitely recommended!