Alexander the Great

by Philip Freeman

As for his motives, we err greatly when we try to make Alexander anything more than a man of supreme military ability who wanted passionately to rule the world. Views of the Macedonian king as Prometheus bringing the light of Greek civilization to the poor masses of Asia are both unsound and insulting to the advanced cultures of the ancient east. To truly understand Alexander we must realize that—perhaps more than any man in history—he hated to lose. Alexander was and is the absolute embodiment of pure human ambition with all its good and evil consequences. We can condemn the death and destruction he left in his wake as he strode across the world like a colossus, but in the end we can’t help but admire a man who dared such great deeds.

So the whole while I was reading this book I was wondering, WTF is the point of all this? Then on the last page... perhaps not much.