Alexander the Great - Robin Lane Fox

Just finishing up this biography and wondering about a good counterpoint to Fox on Alexander. What would be a good bio of Alexander that balances and brings up other issues?

I think Peter Green's Alexander of Macedon provides a good contrast with RLN's.

There are others. Some would probably recommend Alexander the Great: The Hunt for a New Past. I would NOT, however, recommend your second read be The Genius of Alexander the Great, Tarn's Alexander the Great or Alexander the Great: King, Commander and Statesman or Ulrich Wilcken Alexander the Great.

Of course, you should read Arrian. My order would be Fox, Green, Arrian, Curtius, Conquest and empire : the reign of Alexander the Great, Diodorus.

>2 timspalding: And Plutarch's short life, Tim? Before or after Curtius?

Concur w/Conquest.

Thanks, this is really helpful. Is your order by importance or chronology for reading?

>2 timspalding:

I say after Curtius. And Justin WAY later. That, however, is for the "real" history of Alexander. If one were, say, interested in Alexander as a cultural topic—in how Alexander has been perceived over time—you'd do Plutarch first, probably.

Thanks for reminding me, Tim, of Justin, or Pompeius Trogus. I must read him/them.

>7 shikari:

Not much there, alas.

>6 timspalding: For Alexander as a cultural topic, you’d also want to add the various forms of the Romance of Alexander (Alexander as a true Egyptian, for example, born by trickery to an Egyptian pharaoh/magician).

Right. Stoneman's book is a good introduction to that. See Alexander the Great: A Life in Legend.