Alexander the Great: Journey to the End of the Earth by Norman F. Cantor

Alexander the Great: Journey to the End of the Earth Reviews

• 
  William Winkle

  Several reviews have criticized this book for adding nothing new to the field of Alexander scholasticism. To them, I would counter with this: I wanted a brief overview of who Alexander was and what he did. This book was exactly that, plus an excellent summation at the end of Alexander's influence on history. If Cantor has extrapolated or inferred at a few points, I'm fine with that. I didn't come here for exhaustive minutia -- I have other books on Alexander tagged for deeper reading. Rather, Cantor paint's the Greek world and its struggle with Persia in very broad strokes, then places a very human and fallible Alexander within it. He balances the personal and military aspects of Alexander's life quiet effectively. For a short work, Cantor covers a lot of ground with a style that is as intelligent as it is accessible.
• 
  A.L. Sowards

  I've been listening to more audiobooks this year, mostly through my library's digital system. I finished one, and was on hold for two others (in the 1st position--which mean the book might be available in a few hours, or not for three weeks). This one seemed like a good choice to fill the gap. And it's not a bad book. For such a short work (4.5 hours), it spent a lot of time setting up Alexander's society and then covering his impact. Those parts weren't bad, but in a book so short, taking an hour to really get into Alexander didn't leave much space to cover what I was really interested in--his conquests. I did like the emphasis Cantor put on Alexander being a product of his time--incredibly brave in a world that valued courage, and incredibly cruel in a world where life was cheap.
  
  This book is probably a great choice for a lot of readers (or listeners). My preference is for something a little more in depth. Given the length, I should have adjusted my expectations. I have more in-depth works on Alexander sitting in my library (Arrian and Curtius Rufus). Maybe one of these days I'll get around to reading them.
• 
  Faith

  Interesting overview, but there were problems with the audiobook. It was very annoying that the voice, sound quality and volume fluctuated frequently, possibly when parts were re-recorded. Also, I think such a short book should have stuck with strict chronological order and not repeated Alexander’s death several times. 3.5 stars
• 
  Irene

  A good overview of Alexander life and its cultural and political setting.
  It was brief and to the point, there was little new information but it was great for building a frame of reference.
• 
  Hyrum

  This was a short telling of the life and conquests of Alexander the Great, followed by a discussion of his legacy and historiography. In the last chapter when the author is discussing other biographies, he doesn’t seem to consider his book a biography. The book does not shy away from the faults of the conqueror. There is a fair amount of discussion about Alexander’s sexuality. The author gives the subject points for his charisma and his adventurous spirit, but less than is normal for his strategy. I didn’t learn much new from this book, but that said it is a good starter book for anyone interested in learning the basics of Alexander’s life.
• 
  Jason

  What a weird historical biography. Goes off the rails often, to the point that I'm never sure what organizing theme is being used - at its worst it feels almost like a stream-of-consciousness book written by a trivia nerd. (That's not praise.) People with even a passing knowledge of Alexander aren't going to get much out of this book - there's very little that's new here.
• 
  Justin

  Embarrassing. A journey to the editor's desk was in order. Banal, trifling, lazy.
  
  Don't bother.
• 
  Kevin

  Good introduction to the not so great Alexander, who you learn throughout the book might not be such a great guy to be friends with. As I was reading this I wondered how much of this ancient history did George RR Martin draw on to create the Game of Thrones world. This is a very good overview of Alexander's march to India and a good bibliography is supplied for further reading if you want to go deeper into Alexander's world.
• 
  Peter Vik

  Good, clear and concise presentation of Alexander the Great in his historical context. Cantor does not romanticize, nor is his tone critical. He explains that people with a worldview shaped by principles of Christianity have a hard time understanding the world of Ancient Greece, which taints their perspective on Alexander in one way or another. He finishes with a good discussion on what sense in which Alexander was great.
• 
  Sri

  Well thought out and not all over the place, this book offers readers a brief yet insightful account of Alexander's life. In doing so, it is balanced and doesn't glace over his flaws. It presents Alexander as a human entity and doesn't glorify him too much. A lucid, yet very effective way to learn history.
• 
  David Eves

  Ok Alexander conquered the world by his 30s but has he beaten Elden Ring twice
• 
  James Piper

  A textbook or scholarly writing on Alexander the Great. A bio and an attempt to answer the question: was he great? It would have helped if the author defined what it means to be great and hence create a measuring stick. He doesn't do that. He simply summarizes why he may or may not be considered great. Again, whatever that may be.
  
  I didn't find anything new in this text.
  
  What I found most interesting was the impact of christianity on modern western society and how that frames our views on the Greeks of that era.
  
  
• 
  Holly

  This would have been a lot better if 50 some pages were not taken up by information that had nothing to do with anything.
  
  I have always been interested in Alexander and his family. I felt while this book was very informative, could have been written better and in an actual time line style. Instead the author skipped all over the place and i had to re-live Alexanders death in 4 different chapters.
  
  
• 
  Komal

  2.5 stars
• 
  BAM the enigma

  Just when I thought the introduction was over, the book ended. Way too short considering the legend
  I learned he practiced homosexuality and killed Darius
• 
  saïd

  Really no "new" information or scholarship presented or discussed, but—as a comparatively short (under 200 pages) summary of the life and exploits of Alexander III—excellent.
• 
  Nerine Dorman

  Perhaps if you're new to the topic, this book will be a good starting point. Norman F Cantor has a fairly chatty style in Alexander the Great – Journey to the End of the Earth, but I found him annoying at times in his poking, ahem, at the nature of Alexander's relationship with Hephaestion and Alexander's (and the men at the time's) sexuality in general. Who cares? They weren't haunted by the ghosts of Victorian prudery back then.
  
  This isn't an expansive volume, so if you're looking for a read/listen with more meat on its bones, then rather go elsewhere. I had this as part of my Audible subscription and wasn't too wild about the overall (lack of) production value. Things got a bit patchy, which is kinda sad considering this is such a short read.
  
  I did gain an idea of the brutality of the lives of the Macedonians of this age, however. There was a whole lot of drinking, boinking, and killing, and the picture that Cantor paints is of a emperor who, as his conquests mount up, and he gets further and further away from home in both physical and metaphorical sense, grows more and more paranoid and delusional. I'm reminded of that little quip from Highlander where the Kurgan tells Connor, "It's better to burn out than to fade away" – which in this case most certainly applies to Alexander.
  
  Other reviewers with a little more historical smarts than me have also pointed out that Cantor makes a bunch of errors that were not caught by any editor, but considering that I have the attention span of a goldfish, I didn't pick up these incorrect historical details. So my caution is to keep this in mind, should you pick up a copy. And if in doubt, cross reference.
  
  Did I enjoy this book? Yeah, it was pretty good. I'm currently indulging in a pile of research about ancient times for my own work, so it's good to immerse. This was a fair to middling read/listen, but I've been reliably told that there are better works out there that go into far more detail.
• 
  Marwan Elnakeeb

  Alexander The Great indeed was deserving of his name. A King of Kings, a Conquerors' Conqueror, and a mere mortal who through acts of courage, agency, intelligence, vision, relentless persistence, and sheer force of will aspired, touched upon, and quite frankly deserved a stature of deification.
  
  It's quite absurd how some modern onlookers of history see through the acts of towering historical figures through the sanitized lens of detachment from nature, life, and death that we employ to navigate the world of today. Lifespans were shorter, death was a daily companion, and life was harsh, cruel, sobering to a fault, and merciless in its punishment of those who didn't wield power well.
  
  In such a world a man with the proper temperament, fertile circumstances, right preparation, fine education, and prime opportunity seized the world's entire imagination for centuries by going farther than anyone has gone before him and by carving for himself a deep place in history.
  
  A man who was faulty, temperamental, unstable, a drunkard, murdering, cruel ruthless, generous, gracious, bisexual, with delusions of grandeur, and a military strategic genius, all rolled into one. You can't dissect people into good and bad, we're all both at the same time, and we choose our paths in life riding both beasts of burden.
  
  Say what you will of Alexander, for he was indeed great. And even though he lived a rather short life, it was a life well lived and time very well spent on earth during which he did achieve immortality in our minds.
  
  This was such beautiful biography of Alexander.
• 
  David Gamble

  There are some problems with how history is generally presented in modern America. Most of those have to do with the slant put on history to fit the presenter's narrative or has to do with a lack of context for that history. This book not only doesn't have those problems but points out where parts of this particular story have been twisted or neglected because of those problems. The exception may be at the end, but it's a 'may be' rather than a 'then the same error happened.' In traditional academic writing, which this is somewhere between that and most modern writing that follows no rules, there's a summary and statement about what should be taken away from what was presented. He does that, and in that there is a judgement about the people, person of Alexander, and culture(s) in question. However, he presents this in the context of 'to our eyes....' He doesn't presume what's right or wrong, moral or immoral, but he does show how through the ages we've shifted these stories to suit us and suggests a more thorough discovery of them could be even more helpful. I loved this book. I'm giving it 4/5 only because there are parts of the book where there's almost a hole. There needs to be more information, detail, or reference in those holes.
• 
  Saint Erik

  A good overview of the expeditions and conquests of Alexander the Great. The last chapter could be skipped as it's mostly a review and criticism of the canonical Alexander the Great biographies.The author does a great job detailing some of Alexander's more famous exploits: The Siege of Tyre, battles and defeat of Darius III of the Persian empire and his final attempt to push into India, becoming the first westerner to fight war elephants. As a child Alexander was tutored by Aristotle, he was taught that the world ends in a small peninsula south of the Hindu Kush mountains (modern day India.) The Greeks had no knowledge of China. I think about how Alexander must have imagined seeing the end of the world. Did he dream of going to the end of the planet? Going further than anyone else? Standing at the edge of the world (as he knew it) and seeing it all? He almost made it. He was forced to turn back after his men refused to go further, just 600 north of the Indian ocean. It's too inspiring to think about.
• 
  Andy Klein

  A brief but surprisingly thorough biography of Alexander. It does a yeoman’s job at capturing the many characteristics-both positive and negative-that made up the man, and put his behavior in the context of the deplorable norms of the time. I knew about his brutality and ruthlessness both to his enemies and, often, his Allie’s, but I didn’t realize the amount of serious injuries he sustained in combat. It’s no wonder that he died so young. One thing is for sure, I don’t envy those poor members of his army who warred for 11,000 miles over 8 years in deserts, rain forests, over mountains, and across countless bodies of water while often suffering for lack of food and water and shelter, fighting armies that were many times its size, including hundreds of elephants, and having hot pitch cast down on them from walls. If there was a worse military gig for a victorious army, I’d love to hear about it.
• 
  Narsku

  There were several glaring factual errors in the introduction (and I mean stuff that's taught on whatever grade you first have world history), which I found astonishing since the author is a historian. Turns out this was published posthumously and a second author - of whom I could find nothing - is also credited. It seems likely that there was a manuscript and it was rushed through publication with some parts, including the introduction, slapped onto it with very little care. I don't quite see the point in doing this, since there is no shortage of writing on the topic - from contemporary fragments to extensive modern biographies and in-depth research. This is a short introduction to Alexander but the uneven quality within the book is a great disadvantage.
• 
  Marla

  There was some very interesting information contained in the book, but that is because Alexander the Great did some interesting things. The writing itself was dull. It read like a term paper written for the benefit of Cantor's colleagues, not a book that would spark interest in a reader wanting to learn more about Alexander the Great.
  I enjoy books based on fact and appreciate having various thoughts and theories being explained, but all of that can be written in an interesting fashion.
  I am thankful the book was less than 200 pages and it was a decent introduction to his life but I do not feel satisfied that I read an interesting account of a colorful historical figure.
• 
  Bronze

  Look, if you're looking for a quick learner about Alexander the Great, this will get the job done. It is a short book that explains his general life and his conquests and motivation for doing so. If you don't want to spend a lot of time on the subject, this is certainly it.
  
  The writing and editing on this book is atrocious. The author jumps around from subject to subject with no transition between. He is constantly backtracking to a previous discussion with little organization. This feels like an extended high school paper, where all the facts are jammed in there with little rhyme or reason.
• 
  Simon

  It's a nice corrective to the Renault novels overly romanticized view of Alexander. Which I love, don't get me wrong, but as fiction. Cantor's slim book makes a number of interesting points. Greek culture, and by extension Alexander, was violent, superstitious, cruel and misogynistic. He was Alexander the "Great" precisely because he led his army to victory, not because of nascent world federalism tendencies. The writing is brisk, and occasionally brutal, but Cantor makes a strong case for his read on Alexander.