Recensione in Italiano: QUI.

Good day everyone, I’m Elena and I thank you for being on Alessandro III di Macedonia – your resource on Alexander the Great and Hellenism. Today I’m telling you about some useless reading I did:

Alexander the Great: The Hero of the Ancient World: Conquests, Dreams and the Legacy of an Immortal King

by Lavina De Marco

Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, 2024

ISBN: 979-8327893788, 100 pp.

read in the Italian edition: Alessandro Magno. L’eroe dell’antico mondo: conquiste, sogni e l’eredità di un re immortale

Scoprite la vita straordinaria di Alessandro Magno, il re macedone che conquistò l’antico mondo e forgiò un impero senza precedenti. Questo libro illumina le sue conquiste, il genio militare e l’eredità immortale, offrendo una finestra unica sulle sue aspirazioni, battaglie e la profonda influenza che continua ad esercitare sulla cultura moderna.

Reading time: June 30, 2024.

INDEX:

1. Origini di un conquistatore
2. L’ascesa di un re
3. Unificazione della Grecia
4. Il sogno persiano
5. La Battaglia del Granico
6. La conquista dell’Egitto
7. Gaugamela: la vittoria decisiva
8. Il re del mondo
9. Esplorazioni e conquiste in Asia
10. Il Drago dell’India
11. Il ritorno dall’India
12. Gli ultimi giorni a Babilonia
13. La morte di un Conquistatore
14. La spaccatura dell’impero
15. Alessandro: l’uomo e il mito
16. Strategie militari e tattiche
17. La fusione delle culture
18. L’eredità di Alessandro
19. Alessandro nelle arti
20. Conclusione: l’immortalità di un sogno

Questo libro offre un viaggio affascinante attraverso la vita, le conquiste e l’eredità di Alessandro Magno, uno dei leader militari più straordinari dell’antichità. Dalla precoce giovinezza alla formazione sotto l’egida di Aristotele, fino alla creazione di uno degli imperi più vasti della storia, scoprirete ogni aspetto dell’incredibile viaggio di Alessandro. Esplorate le sue innovative tattiche militari, il carisma che univa le truppe e la visione che lo spingeva oltre i confini conosciuti del mondo. Attraverso analisi dettagliate, testimonianze storiche e riflessioni sul suo impatto culturale, questo libro rivela come Alessandro abbia forgiato un’eredità che trascende il tempo, influenzando la geopolitica, la cultura e il pensiero fino ai giorni nostri. “Alessandro Magno: L’Eroe dell’Antico Mondo” non è solo un racconto storico, ma un’esplorazione della natura dell’ambizione, del potere e dell’umanità.

Descrizione riportata nella scheda di Amazon

This booklet is also available in the following editions:

EN: Alexander the Great: The Hero of the Ancient World: Conquests, Dreams and the Legacy of an Immortal King (19,35 €)
FR: Alexandre le Grand : le héros de l’Antiquité: Conquêtes, rêves et héritage d’un roi immortel: le hros de l’Antiquit: Conqutes, rves et hritage d’un roi immortel (24,64 €)
ES: Alejandro Magno: El héroe del mundo antiguo: Conquistas, sueños y el legado de un rey inmortal: El hroe del mundo antiguo: Conquistas, sueos y el legado de un rey inmortal (18,99 €)
DE: Alexander der Große: Der Held der antiken Welt: Eroberungen, Träume und das Vermächtnis eines unsterblichen Königs: Der Held der antiken Welt (24,29 €)

This reading leaves me somewhat perplexed because I didn’t find any positive aspects and therefore I don’t recommend it to you, for two main reasons: it costs too much for the less than 100 pages (or a few more depending on the edition) it has and above all it contains little incomplete information are wrong and is not useful for understanding Alexander the Great better.

The book is divided into twenty chapters and has a simple, basic layout, but the number of pages is missing. From the name I assume that the author is Italian and she has translated the book into other languages, but shame that even in Italian there are typos and errors: verbs in the wrong tense (and let’s not talk about the subjunctive) and use of wrong terms.

From reading this book I assume that the author doesn’t know Alexander the Great or that she knows him very little, because an enthusiast or someone who has read at least one serious biographical essay cannot omit certain information and events. From some sentences it seems to not know what she’s talking about. She confuses and incorrectly attributes the books by Valerio Massimo Manfredi and Mary Renault.

I also believe that she wrote this book, if it can be defined that way, without organizing the information she wanted to express at all, so we always read the same things repeated several times, without any links between them, there is a lack of logical and causal concatenation- effect. The Battle of Granicus as it begins, ends, without a before or after. The story of Alexander the Great is told as if it were in episodes, but is poorly explained, with clichés, full of adjectives that say how great he was without making it clear why, for what reasons. The author has taken a handful of concepts that she continues to repeat without explaining them, without giving any basis for them, but by always repeating them with the same few words she doesn’t justify them. Furthermore, by always repeating the same concepts, the author sometimes changes the sentence a little and leads the reader into confusion as to what really happened.

In this book it would be quicker to say what is there rather than say what is missing, because so many characters, events and explanations are missing. Towards the end of the book, in “trying” to talk about the influence of Alexander the Great, there are references to events that she didn’t even mention when talking about his life before, so the reader doesn’t know when they happened. I didn’t find the contents presented in the synopsis and in the book description, so I was disappointed by the reading.

Another thing missing are the bibliographical references and in an introductory reading, if it succeeds in raising curiosity about the topic, it should also provide other insights. Furthermore, the author is a nobody in the field of research on Alexander the Great (and this applies to me too) and she should cite her sources otherwise it seems like she is writing a novel.

The book also contains black and white images in the style of the cover image, but captions are missing: even in this case, an uninformed reader may not know what statues or works they are. From these images we only understand that the author is good at using some photo-editing apps.

Let’s keep in mind that this is presented as an introductory reading for a general audience, but not only does it not introduce, but the little it says is often wrong and always incomplete. Useless reading. I wonder how the author decided to sell this “book” at the price of € 20, because she probably underestimated the topic and was unable to understand that this book is not only not worth € 20 but not even worth € 5. I have been so thoughtful in this review precisely because of the final price of the book: with that money you can get books that are well looked after in every way and full of information and this book is just not worth it.

Thanks everyone, have a nice day

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