Alexander at the End of the World : The Forgotten Final Years of Alexander the Great.

By:

Kousser, Rachel

Material type: Text

TextPublisher: New York : Mariner Books, 2024Description: viii, 401 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates ; 23 cmContent type:

text
still image

Media type:

unmediated

Carrier type:

volume

ISBN:

9780062869685
006286968X

Subject(s):

Generals -- Greece -- Biography

Genre/Form:

Biographies.

DDC classification:

LOC classification:

Summary: A riveting biography of Alexander the Great’s final years, when the leader’s insatiable desire to conquer the world set him off on an exhilarating, harrowing journey that would define his legacy. By 330 B.C.E., Alexander the Great had reached the pinnacle of success. Or so it seemed. He had defeated the Persian ruler Darius III and seized the capital city of Persepolis. His exhausted and traumatized soldiers were ready to return home to Macedonia. Yet Alexander had other plans. He was determined to continue heading east to Afghanistan in search of his ultimate goal: to reach the end of the world. Alexander’s unrelenting desire to press on resulted in a perilous seven-year journey through the unknown eastern borderlands of the Persian empire that would test the great conqueror’s physical and mental limits. He faced challenges from the natural world, moving through deadly monsoons and extreme temperatures; from a rotating cast of well-matched adversaries, who conspired against him at every turn; and even from his own men, who questioned his motives and distrusted the very beliefs on which Alexander built his empire. This incredible sweep of time, culminating with his death in 323 BC at the age of 32, would come to determine Alexander’s legacy and shape the empire he left behind. In Alexander at the End of the World, renowned classicist and art history professor Rachel Kousser vividly brings to life Alexander’s labyrinthine, treacherous final years, weaving together a brilliant series of epic battles, stunning landscapes, and nearly insurmountable obstacles. Meticulously researched and grippingly written, Kousser’s narrative is an unforgettable tale of daring and adventure, an inspiring portrait of grit and ambition, and a powerful meditation on the ability to learn from failure.

Average rating: 0.0 (0 votes)

Holdings
Item type	Current library	Collection	Shelving location	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Adult Book	Phillipsburg Free Public Library	Adult Non-Fiction	New Books	938 KOU	Checked out	09/27/2024	36748002563676

Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

"A heart-pounding, mind-bending adventure." --Ilyon Woo

A riveting biography of Alexander the Great's final years, when the leader's insatiable desire to conquer the world set him off on an exhilarating, harrowing journey that would define his legacy.

By 330 B.C.E., Alexander the Great had reached the pinnacle of success. Or so it seemed. He had defeated the Persian ruler Darius III and seized the capital city of Persepolis. His exhausted and traumatized soldiers were ready to return home to Macedonia. Yet Alexander had other plans. He was determined to continue heading east to Afghanistan in search of his ultimate goal: to reach the end of the world.

Alexander's unrelenting desire to press on resulted in a perilous seven-year journey through the unknown eastern borderlands of the Persian empire that would test the great conqueror's physical and mental limits. He faced challenges from the natural world, moving through deadly monsoons and extreme temperatures; from a rotating cast of well-matched adversaries, who conspired against him at every turn; and even from his own men, who questioned his motives and distrusted the very beliefs on which Alexander built his empire. This incredible sweep of time, culminating with his death in 323 BC at the age of 32, would come to determine Alexander's legacy and shape the empire he left behind.

In Alexander at the End of the World, renowned classicist and art history professor Rachel Kousser vividly brings to life Alexander's labyrinthine, treacherous final years, weaving together a brilliant series of epic battles, stunning landscapes, and nearly insurmountable obstacles. Meticulously researched and grippingly written, Kousser's narrative is an unforgettable tale of daring and adventure, an inspiring portrait of grit and ambition, and a powerful meditation on the ability to learn from failure.

A riveting biography of Alexander the Great’s final years, when the leader’s insatiable desire to conquer the world set him off on an exhilarating, harrowing journey that would define his legacy. By 330 B.C.E., Alexander the Great had reached the pinnacle of success. Or so it seemed. He had defeated the Persian ruler Darius III and seized the capital city of Persepolis. His exhausted and traumatized soldiers were ready to return home to Macedonia. Yet Alexander had other plans. He was determined to continue heading east to Afghanistan in search of his ultimate goal: to reach the end of the world. Alexander’s unrelenting desire to press on resulted in a perilous seven-year journey through the unknown eastern borderlands of the Persian empire that would test the great conqueror’s physical and mental limits. He faced challenges from the natural world, moving through deadly monsoons and extreme temperatures; from a rotating cast of well-matched adversaries, who conspired against him at every turn; and even from his own men, who questioned his motives and distrusted the very beliefs on which Alexander built his empire. This incredible sweep of time, culminating with his death in 323 BC at the age of 32, would come to determine Alexander’s legacy and shape the empire he left behind. In Alexander at the End of the World, renowned classicist and art history professor Rachel Kousser vividly brings to life Alexander’s labyrinthine, treacherous final years, weaving together a brilliant series of epic battles, stunning landscapes, and nearly insurmountable obstacles. Meticulously researched and grippingly written, Kousser’s narrative is an unforgettable tale of daring and adventure, an inspiring portrait of grit and ambition, and a powerful meditation on the ability to learn from failure.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

Prologue: Alexander's Choice (1)
1 A City on Fire (11)
2 The Hunt for the Great King (29)
3 Old Friends and New Clothes (45)
4 Lovers and Conspirators (58)
5 Epic Combat (69)
6 Across the Hindu Kush (79)
7 Fighting the Hydra (89)
8 Murder at the Feast (107)
9 Three Banquets and a Conspiracy (122)
10 Following in the Footsteps of the Gods (143)
11 How to Fight an Elephant (163)
12 Monsoon and Mutiny (178)
13 The End of the World (196)
14 The Land of the Fish Eaters (215)
15 A Ransacked Tomb and a Fiery Death (232)
16 Ninety-Two Brides (241)
17 Demobilization and Its Discontents (249)
18 The Death of Patroklos (267)
19 Babylon (274)
Epilogue: Alexander's New World (286)
Acknowledgments (295)
Sources (297)
Notes (299)
Bibliography (365)
Index (389)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

"The last years of Alexander were not just the sordid aftermath of a once impressive career; they were in fact what made him 'Great,' " according to this beguiling biography. Historian Kousser (The Afterlives of Greek Sculpture) argues that, during Alexander's "quixotic" push eastward after his defeat of the Persian empire in 330 BCE, he experienced a string of "failures" that tempered and matured his outlook. These included his poor handling of mutinies, conspiracies, and the deaths of beloved companions; strategic blundering in response to enemies' guerilla tactics; and a brush with death on the battlefield. Kousser portrays these setbacks as feeding into Alexander's larger struggle "com to terms with a world far more complicated than the one in which he was born" as he traveled, and governed, farther from home than people of his era typically ventured. In so doing, Alexander gained an unprecedented glimpse of the way in which human culture varies across vast distances, which altered his political philosophy, Kousser argues; he developed a "hard-won understanding of his enemies and a willingness to compromise" that led to his empire's most significant legacy, the forging of an "interconnected Hellenistic world" that promoted a new kind of democratic pluralism. Kousser's novelistic account, with its emphasis on personalities and intrigues, makes for compulsive reading. The result is a fresh and propulsive take on an ancient figure who grappled with how to govern a diverse society. (July)

Booklist Review

Over the course of his brief life, Alexander the Great, king of Macedonia, created an empire stretching from the Balkan peninsula south into Egypt and east to the Indian subcontinent. After subduing Darius III's formidable Persian Empire, Alexander led his forces east, searching for Ocean, the body of water that his tutor Aristotle believed encircled the earth. Kousser (The Afterlives of Greek Sculpture, 2017) focuses her biography of Alexander on the conqueror's final seven years, as he drove as far as today's Pakistan before leading his armies back to Macedon. Culture clashes among Alexander's forces led to several mutinous uprisings. Kousser details Alexander's skills at organizing logistical support to keep troops fed, housed, and paid. Alexander's close relationship with Hephaistion, his comrade in arms and beloved intimate, receives appropriate scrutiny, and Hephaistion's death so shortly before Alexander's own echoes Achilles' and Patroclus' stories from Homer's Iliad. Battles are meticulously recounted in all their bloody confusions. Fans of Game of Thrones will find multiple parallels in these ancient war stories that add to their immediacy.

Kirkus Book Review

A professor of ancient art and archaeology tracks Alexander III through the last years of his Iranian and Indian campaigns, arguing that this period proved his greatness. Kousser catches up with Alexander the Macedonian king in 330 B.C.E., after four years of wildly successful conquests through Central Asia in pursuit of his rival, Persian Emperor Darius III. Although the Macedonians found the seasoned warrior already assassinated, Alexander resolved to continue his rampage through eastern Persia and down into India for another seven grueling years. The author asks: Why did he press on when his exhausted, devoted army beseeched him to return home, where he could have rested on his laurels and vast riches? Inspired by the Hellenistic ideals taught to him by his early tutor, Aristotle, Alexander chose to embody them. Kousser shows him as a godlike Achilles figure who challenged lions single-handedly, even while he was chided for recklessness by his own men. Although impulsive and quick to anger--e.g., he stabbed his longtime companion Kleitos at a drunken feast, an act he quickly regretted, considering suicide--Alexander evolved as he became more aware of the humanity of the people he conquered. As he pushed his army in pursuit of rogue Persian generals like Bessos through eastern Persia and across the formidable Hindu Kush, he took Persian lovers and a wife, Roxane; assimilated Persian generals into his army; and began to adopt Persian clothes and customs. "The East did not corrupt the Macedonian king," writes the author. "Instead, from the outset he contained within himself the seeds of everything he would one day become." Kousser argues astutely that assimilation and integration with those he conquered would ultimately define his enduring legacy. The text includes maps. A thoughtful, elegant study that sheds new light on an endlessly fascinating historical figure. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.