Ep. #158: Book Club: Alexander the Great by Philip Freeman

If you like to read biographies to find ideas, models, systems, habits, etc. that extraordinary people have used to improve their lives and achieve great things, then you want to read this book because Alexander the Great wasn’t just one of the greatest military geniuses of all time, he was also, to quote the author, “...perhaps more than any other man in history, the absolute embodiment of pure human ambition with all its good and evil consequences.”

In short, Alexander was a man who conquered much of the ancient world simply because he could, and for that reason, he’s one of my personal favorite characters in history. Here’s a guy who took about fifty thousand troops and went on a truly epic journey: he marched them thousands of miles to the ends of the known world and led them to victory in scores of sieges, battles, and skirmishes, including many where they were out-numbered several times over, and ultimately toppled the Persian empire and created what is still one of the largest kingdoms ever. You just can’t help but admire someone who dared such great deeds.

Now, some people are going to be “triggered” by my horrible, violent words and whine about how Alexander was nothing but a maniacal, genocidal, mass-murdering thug LITERALLY HITLER, and to them I say...you’re stupid.

Yes, he killed a lot of innocent people, but writing him off as a psychopath is far too simplistic. He was a man of his times and no better or worse than pretty much every other general in the ancient world, including celebrated figures like Hannibal and Caesar.

Furthermore, as Freeman explains in the end of this book, a compelling argument can be made that Alexander’s escapades laid the foundation of Western culture.

Specifically, in later years, the Romans were so fascinated with Alexander’s exploits that they developed an intense interest in Hellenic philosophy and literature and disseminated far and wide, from the sands of Syria to the shores of Britain. Then there’s the fact that the New Testament and most other popular early Christian literature was written in Greek, which was almost universally spoken as a result of Alexander’s conquests, enabling it to go “viral” in a way that simply couldn’t have happened were it to have been written in Jesus’ native language, Aramaic. It’s very possible, Freeman says, that without Alexander, Christianity would have remained a local phenomenon and we would be living in a very different world today.

Anyway, regardless of how you feel about what he did, I promise that you can benefit from learning about Alexander’s life, and out of the several biographies I’ve read on him, this is my favorite.

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