In the arc of western history, Ancient Greece is at the apex, owing to its grandeur, its culture, and an intellectual renaissance to rival that of Europe. So important is Greece to history that figures such as Plato and Socrates are still household names, and the works of Homer are regularly adapted into movies. The most acclaimed hero of all, though, is Alexander the Great.While historians have studied Alexander’s achievements at length, author and professor Richard A. Billows delves deeper into the obscure periods of Alexander’s life before and after his reign. In the definitive Before and After Alexander, Billows explores the years preceding Alexander, who, Billows argues, without the foundation laid by his father, Philip II of Macedon. would not have had the resources or influence to develop one of the greatest empires in history. Alexander was groomed from a young age to succeed his father, and by the time Philip was assassinated in 336 BC, his great empire was already well underway.The years following Alexander's death were even more momentous. In this ambitious new work, Richard Billows robustly challenges the notion that the political strife that followed was for lack of a leader as competent as Alexander, pointing out instead that there were too many extremely capable leaders who exploited the power vacuum created by Alexander's death to carve out kingdoms for themselves.Above all, in Before and After Alexander, Billows eloquently and convincingly posits a complex view of one of the greatest empires in history, framing it not as the achievement of one man, but the culmination of several generations of aggressive expansion toward a unified purpose.
Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
The story of the wars that led to the break-up of Alexander the Great's vast empire after his death in 323 BC and the brilliant cultural developments which accompanied this birth of a new world.
An authoritative and dramatic portrait set against a backdrop of the war-torn Greek empire draws on extensive research to cover such topics as Alexander's military prowess, premature death and inspiration to subsequent historical conquerors ...
The author of Herodotus chronicles the dramatic collapse of the late Alexander the Great's empire, providing coverage of the unsuccessful attempted reigns of his developmentally disabled brother and posthumously born son, the infighting ...
Finally, after 2,340 years, the mystery is unravelled. In a forensic first, David Grant presents a compelling case for what he terms the ‘greatest succession cover up of all time’.
This book establishes Philip's legitimate and deserved place in military history, which, until now, has been largely minimized in favor of his son by the classicist writers who have dominated the field of ancient biography.
In The Lost Book of Alexander the Great, Andrew Young explores the world of ancient writings about the Macedonian leader in order to determine whether any of Ptolemy's writings can be recovered.
An appraisal of the momentous military and political changes after the era of Alexander, this book considers developments in literature, religion, philosophy, and science, and establishes how far they are presented as radical departures ...
This is a new study of the history, archaeology and numismatics of Central Asia, an area of great significance for our understanding of the ancient and early medieval world. This...
Immediately quelling rebellion, Alexander extended his father’s empire through-out the Middle East and into parts of Asia, fulfilling the soothsayer Aristander’s prediction that the new king “should perform acts so important and ...