In the arc of western history, Ancient Greece is at the apex, owing to
its grandeur, its culture, and an intellectual renaissance to rival that
of Europe. So important is Greece to history that figures such as Plato
and Socrates are still household names, and the works of Homer are
regularly adapted into movies. The most acclaimed hero of all, though,
is Alexander the Great.While historians have studied Alexander's
achievements at length, author and professor Richard A. Billows delves
deeper into the obscure periods of Alexander's life before and after his
reign. In the definitive Before and After Alexander, Billows explores
the years preceding Alexander, who, Billows argues, without the
foundation laid by his father, Philip II of Macedon. would not have had
the resources or influence to develop one of the greatest empires in
history. Alexander was groomed from a young age to succeed his father,
and by the time Philip was assassinated in 336 BC, his great empire was
already well underway.The years following Alexander's death were even
more momentous. In this ambitious new work, Richard Billows robustly
challenges the notion that the political strife that followed was for
lack of a leader as competent as Alexander, pointing out instead that
there were too many extremely capable leaders who exploited the power
vacuum created by Alexander's death to carve out kingdoms for
themselves.Above all, in Before and After Alexander, Billows eloquently
and convincingly posits a complex view of one of the greatest empires in
history, framing it not as the achievement of one man, but the
culmination of several generations of aggressive expansion toward a
unified purpose.
