Alexander the Great A Life in Legend Richard Stoneman

Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.E.) precipitated immense historical change in the Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds. But the resonance his legend achieved over the next two millennia stretched even farther - across foreign cultures, religious traditions, and distant nations.This engaging and handsomely illustrated book gathers together for the first time hundreds of the colourful Alexander legends that have been told and retold around the globe. Richard Stoneman, a foremost expert on the Alexander myths, introduces us first to the historical Alexander and then to the Alexander of legend, an unparalleled mythic icon who came to represent the heroic ideal in cultures from Egypt to Iceland, from Britain to Malaya.Alexander came to embody the concerns of Hellenistic man; he fueled Roman ideas on tyranny and kingship; he was a talisman for fourth-century pagans and a hero of chivalry in the early Middle Ages. He appears in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic writings, frequently as a prophet of God. Whether battling winged foxes or meeting with the Amazons, descending to the underworld or inventing the world's first diving bell, Alexander inspired as a hero, even a god. Stoneman traces Alexander's influence in ancient literature and folklore and in later writings of east and west. His book provides the definitive account of the legends of Alexander the Great - a powerful leader in life and an even more powerful figure in the history of literature and ideas.

Richard Stoneman is the author of many trade and scholarly works in the field of Greek history. Formerly Consultant to the Everyman Library on Classics, he is acknowledged as the foremost expert globally on the myths of Alexander.

'Here Stoneman attempts to split the myth from reality about the man who led a mighty empire.' Dorset Echo

'How the conqueror of the ancient world penetrated so many of the globe's cultures is explained in a highly absorbing tone penned by Richard Stoneman, an Honorary Fellow at Exeter University and an acknowledged expert on the myriad colourful legends surrounding Alexander.' Colin Bradley, Western Morning News

'Scholarly and wide-ranging though Stoneman's chapters are, they never appear dense; nor his prose ever anything less than pellucid and witty. To experts, his book will surely serve as the definitive treatment of Alexander as a figure of myth, a resource to be consulted and quarried for years - and to the general reader as an almost Borgesian compendium of fantasy. If you want stories of the great conqueror in a flying chariot or a diving bell, or as the adversary of dragons and winged foxes, or as a Pharaoh or an Afghan khan, then this is the only book for you.' Tom Holland, The Sunday Telegraph

'... [A] masterful work, one that will not be superseded for a long time.' Peter Jones, The Literary Review

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