Ghost on the Throne: The Death of Alexander the Great and the War for Crown and Empire - Hardcover

Romm, James

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0307271641 ISBN 13: 9780307271648

Publisher: Alfred a Knopf Inc, 2011

Synopsis

Note:This book is rough cut, which means that the pages are unevenly cut to give the book a distinctive look and feel.

Alexander the Great, perhaps the most commanding leader in history, united his empire and his army by the titanic force of his will. His death at the age of thirty-two spelled the end of that unity.

The story of Alexander’s conquest of the Persian empire is known to many readers, but the dramatic and consequential saga of the empire’s collapse remains virtually untold. It is a tale of loss that begins with the greatest loss of all, the death of the Macedonian king who had held the empire together.

With his demise, it was as if the sun had disappeared from the solar system, as if planets and moons began to spin crazily in new directions, crashing into one another with unimaginable force.

Alexander bequeathed his power, legend has it, “to the strongest,” leaving behind a mentally damaged half brother and a posthumously born son as his only heirs. In a strange compromise, both figures—Philip III and Alexander IV—were elevated to the kingship, quickly becoming prizes, pawns, fought over by a half-dozen Macedonian generals. Each successor could confer legitimacy on whichever general controlled him.

At the book’s center is the monarch’s most vigorous defender; Alexander’s former Greek secretary, now transformed into a general himself. He was a man both fascinating and entertaining, a man full of tricks and connivances, like the enthroned ghost of Alexander that gives the book its title, and becomes the determining factor in the precarious fortunes of the royal family.

James Romm, brilliant classicist and storyteller, tells the galvanizing saga of the men who followed Alexander and found themselves incapable of preserving his empire. The result was the undoing of a world, formerly united in a single empire, now ripped apart into a nightmare of warring nation-states struggling for domination, the template of our own times.

About this title

Product Description:

Following his ten-year campaign of conquest, Alexander the Great's empire grew to its largest extent in 325 BCE, but within a few years he had died, the Macedonian generals had begun a vicious rivalry and the empire was being ripped apart. James Robb has written this 'expertly narrated page-turner' to bring alive the little-known saga of battle, treachery, jealousy and suspicion that led to a new world of warring states instead of Alexander's dream of unity. Felt-tip mark on lower trimmed edge. American-cut pages. Slightly off-mint.

Review:

"Romm charts all the reversals and alliances with the skill of a great detective." --Los Angeles Times

"Thrilling. . . . But Ghost on the Throne is [also] a careful work of fine scholarship." --The New Criterion

"Offering well-paced and often-dramatic narratives, up-to-date research, and thorough documentation. . . . [Romm] lends a vividness and passion to his narrative." --The Wall Street Journal

"Romm is a gifted storyteller as well as a respected scholar." --Choice

"[Romm has] mastered the knack that all classicists should have: He can get inside the sources and bring them alive. . . . This is history every reader should know, and this is exactly how it should be written." --Open Letters Monthly

"Romm's saga of the tumultuous years immediately following Alexander's relatively sudden death . . . becomes something of a thriller: [Who] will survive until the next chapter in this roller coaster of an imperial succession story?" --History Book Club

"Romm . . . is one of a few historians worldwide who can be numbered among the Alexander experts." --Westfair Online

"Written more as a thriller than a history tome." --The Daily Freeman

"Fast-paced and absorbing . . . Captivating . . . A sterling account of a little discussed era in ancient history." --Publishers Weekly

"Lively. . . . [A] scholarly but colorful account of the toxic fallout from the untimely demise of a continent-striding conqueror. . . . Romm paints a vivid portrait of ancient politics." --Kirkus Reviews

About this edition

• Publisher: Alfred a Knopf Inc
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0307271641
• ISBN 13: 9780307271648
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 341