Alexander the Great at War

Customer Reviews

• Review of Sheppard's 'Alexander at War'

  I can't understand why this is no longer in print. It's such a modern work, and, frankly, its the best piece on Alexander I've reviewed yet. Not only does this short 250-page work provide an excellent, straightforward biography of Alexander, but it supplements this with detailed consideration of his army and his battles. The illustrations are beautiful and the battle maps clear. There is an unseen imagination in this text; Alexander's world at war is livid! Honestly, you should pass by Green, Fox and Cartledge (ok, so I've only read Cartledge). This is a book that's not to be beat.

• Alexander "underfeated"

  A Well written history of Alexander and his army and his many battles. Highly recommended for anybody who loves to study military history and one of the greatest leaders of all time

• A Great Overview of Alexander's Military Career

  Having now read 40+ books about Alexander, I didn't expect this title to offer anything new or insightful, but I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the scholarship and thoughtful prose contained in this book. I was initially a little disappointed browsing through the book as I was hoping for some new graphics, maps and illustrations that I had not seen before, but I suppose that was wishful thinking. Once I sat down and actually started reading the text, I began to enjoy the contents and writing of Sheppard. She has done a great job of assimilating tons of academia about Alexander's amazingly eventful history and condensing it in a way that is easy to absorb and understand.
  
  The book provides a very thorough background of Alexander's era - both in Greece/Macedonia as well as Persia and western Asia. An understanding of this historical background goes a long way in understanding why Alexander embarked on his unprecedented campaign to conquer the known world and reach the end of the world in the east. The strength of this book is the wealth of detail divulged by Sheppard while remaining clear and lucid and not getting dragged down by high-browed academia. In short, the book is fun to read and you'll learn a lot at the same time.
  
  This book mainly focuses on the military aspects of Alexander's career and that's a good thing: that's what he was best at. He was a good statesman, diplomat, logistician, etc. and he was good and not so good at many other things, but if there is one thing that both pro-Alexander and anti-Alexander schools of thought can agree on, it's his military genius. Alexander's genius is comparable to that of creative and scientific geniuses ranging from Leonardo DaVinci to Isaac Newton and Ludwig van Beethoven to Albert Einstein. Alexander's battles ("masterpieces") are studied in military academies all around the world in the same way Beethoven's symphonies are studied in music conservatories. It's this aspect of Alexander that the book explores and it delivers.