Alexander of Macedon

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1. edoOct 2010
   I read a lot of biographies. It's interesting how you start seeing the common denominators between great men when you do. Especially 'Alexander of Macedon' by Peter Green is a riveting read.
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2. edoMar 2010
   Think & Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill

   Taiko - Eiji Yoshikawa

   Alexander of Macedon - Peter Green

   and +1 for Staunch's choice:

   Meditations - Marcus Aurelius

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3. ares623Mar 2026
   It's a fun read and an interesting premise.

   It's a bit light on rigor than I hoped when I saw the title. It describes 3 fascist or near-fascist states that lost in recent history: Germany, Italy, Franco's Spain. But I wanted to know if Rome under Julius Caesar would be considered fascist? Alexander of Macedon? And also non-western states as well.

   IMO it is less about fascism but wars of conquests that are more likely to be doomed to fail. Maybe fascism is a requirement for desires of conquest so they are tightly related.

   For conquest to succeed it must be quick and overwhelming. Otherwise it becomes a war of attrition against an enemy that has way better motivation than your army. But also, even if you have a decisive victory, it is almost impossible to stop at just one victory because the war machine will be thirsty for more and your entire economy will be dependent on it, so you have to keep going until total failure.

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4. chewzFeb 2020
   Actually there were many more successful conquerors of Afganistan (Greco-Baktrian Kingdon, Mauryan Empire, Kushan Empire, Sassanian Empire, Ghaznavids, Mongol Empire, Timurid Empire, Mughal Empire and Safavid Empire to name just a few) then failed ones.

   Alexander of Macedon[2], British, Soviets and now USA have failed because they all have had unrealistic objectives.

   But Afghanistan had been ruled by "foreign" rulers for most of it's history. They all had one thing in common - they have kept multiple forces in balance and limited their rule to the capital.

   > He shows how governing these peoples was relatively easy when power was concentrated in a small dynastic elite, but how this delicate political order broke down in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries when Afghanistan's rulers mobilized rural militias to expel first the British and later the Soviets. Armed insurgency proved remarkably successful against the foreign occupiers, but it also undermined the Afghan government's authority and rendered the country ever more difficult to govern as time passed.

   > Afghanistan is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how a land conquered and ruled by foreign dynasties for more than a thousand years became the "graveyard of empires" for the British and Soviets, and what the United States must do to avoid a similar fate.

   Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History by Thomas Barfield [1]

   [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7718203-afghanistan

   > Recounting the plight of the most powerful leader of the time as he led the most sophisticated army of its day into the treacherous world of tribal warlords, Holt describes those grueling campaigns and the impact they had on Alexander, his generals, their troops, and the world. Into the Land of Bones also examines the conflict from the point of view of the local warlords who pushed the invading Greeks to the limits of their endurance—and sometimes beyond, into mania and mutiny.

   [2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1584212.Into_the_Land_of...

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