Alexander the Great (FREEMAN, Philip)

He was a general of such skill and renown that for two thousand years every great leader - from Hannibal to Napoleon - studied his strategy and tactics. He established the greatest empire of the ancient world, ruling over a kingdom that stretched from the deserts of Egypt to the mountains of present-day Pakistan. Crowned at age nineteen, he was dead by thirty-two. He was Alexander the Great, and in the first authoritative biography in a generation, Philip Freeman tells the story of this greatest of emperors. 

Born into the royal family of Macedonia, Alexander was tutored as a boy by Aristotle and had an agile, inquisitive mind. Shortly after taking command of the army, he launched an invasion of the Persian empire, the first in a series of military campaigns that went farther and farther east. In his efforts to unify his kingdom, he spread Greek culture throughout the ancient world. Within a short time after Alexander's death in Baghdad, however, his empire began to fracture. 

In his lively biography of Alexander, classical scholar and historian Philip Freeman chronicles Alexander’s astonishing achievements and provides insight into the charismatic character of the great conqueror. Alexander made history as few individuals have.