Egypt
Bryn Mawr Classical Review
There's a table of contents on the above page, together with the rest of the review. Here's an extract:
- Book Review: Alexander The Great: Myth, Genesis And Sexuality
Bryn Mawr Classical Review (Reviewed by Thomas M. Banchich) Daniel Ogden, Alexander the Great: Myth, Genesis and Sexuality. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2011. Daniel Ogden’s book is as much about the dynamics of the appropriation...
- Alexander And His Macedonian Heirs
Al Ahram Weekly (Jill Kamil) Macedonian conquest of Egypt, its consequences and its reflection in literature and art were the subject of an international workshop at the University of Warsaw towards the end of 2011. Its aim was to explore the means by...
- Book Review: Alexander The Great Failure
Bryn Mawr Classical Review John D. Grainger, Alexander the Great Failure. The Collapse of the Macedonian Empire. London: Hambledon Continuum, 2007. Reviewed by Waldemar Heckel, University of Calgary The idea of studying Alexander's achievement in...
- Book Review: Philip Ii Of Macedonia
The Telegraph, UK (Review by Lorna Gibb) Philip II of Macedonia by Ian Worthington Not really about Egypt but this might be of use to anyone who has an interest in Alexander The Great. Any biography requires the piecing together of partial sources and...
- Book Review: Alexander's Lovers
http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2006/5/emw388514.htm "Just published, Alexander’s Lovers is the second book by Andrew Chugg, the author of The Lost Tomb of Alexander the Great. It presents an exploration of Alexander’s character through the mirror...
Egypt
Book Review: Alexander the Great - A Life in Legend
Bryn Mawr Classical Review
There's a table of contents on the above page, together with the rest of the review. Here's an extract:
Richard Stoneman, Alexander the Great: A Life in Legend. New Haven, CT/London: Yale University Press, 2008.
Reviewed by Dawn L. Gilley, History, University of Missouri-Columbia
Modern scholars of Alexander the Great are deeply indebted to Richard Stoneman for his work on the Alexander Romance and its influence on later works about the Macedonian king. In the current volume, he has combined that research in an attempt to address Alexander's longevity in the imaginations of writers after the death of the world's greatest conqueror (4). The work is organized in such a way as to follow the life and career of the king, but also addresses his reign through centuries of interpretation by various cultures. Every chapter opens with pertinent passages from various texts, which aid in highlighting the themes under discussion. Ultimately, the author argues that the presentation of Alexander changes to fit the demands of a particular culture, whether Egyptian, Persian, or Christian, or the genre itself (149).
The work begins with the birth of the future king of the world (Chapter 1) and focuses on Egyptian and Persian versions. Various myths about Alexander's birth insinuate some sort of celestial interference, which has colored these accounts (Alexander Romance I.4, 6, Plutarch, Alexander 2.3-6). The Egyptian version suggests that the lover of Olympias, a serpent, was Nectanebo a magician and last pharaoh of Egypt. It was also an incarnation of Ammon-Re and signified the birth of a hero (7). Stoneman argues that Egyptian culture required that Alexander be conceived by a god (20-21) in order to legitimize his rule of Egypt. That Alexander was designated Pharaoh of Egypt has been much debated. None of the historians of Alexander mentioned that he was Pharaoh or that there was a ceremony to designate him as such, though temple reliefs depict the king as sacrificing in the ways of the Pharaohs. The Alexander Romance refers specifically to a coronation ceremony, which, according to Stoneman, needed some sort of legitimization (1.34). The cultural demands of Egypt required that Alexander followed the traditional "procedure" for pharaohs.
- Book Review: Alexander The Great: Myth, Genesis And Sexuality
Bryn Mawr Classical Review (Reviewed by Thomas M. Banchich) Daniel Ogden, Alexander the Great: Myth, Genesis and Sexuality. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2011. Daniel Ogden’s book is as much about the dynamics of the appropriation...
- Alexander And His Macedonian Heirs
Al Ahram Weekly (Jill Kamil) Macedonian conquest of Egypt, its consequences and its reflection in literature and art were the subject of an international workshop at the University of Warsaw towards the end of 2011. Its aim was to explore the means by...
- Book Review: Alexander The Great Failure
Bryn Mawr Classical Review John D. Grainger, Alexander the Great Failure. The Collapse of the Macedonian Empire. London: Hambledon Continuum, 2007. Reviewed by Waldemar Heckel, University of Calgary The idea of studying Alexander's achievement in...
- Book Review: Philip Ii Of Macedonia
The Telegraph, UK (Review by Lorna Gibb) Philip II of Macedonia by Ian Worthington Not really about Egypt but this might be of use to anyone who has an interest in Alexander The Great. Any biography requires the piecing together of partial sources and...
- Book Review: Alexander's Lovers
http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2006/5/emw388514.htm "Just published, Alexander’s Lovers is the second book by Andrew Chugg, the author of The Lost Tomb of Alexander the Great. It presents an exploration of Alexander’s character through the mirror...