The Virtues of War: A Novel of Alexander the Great

(Paperback)

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I have always been a soldier. I have known no other life. So begins Alexander's extraordinary confession on the eve of his greatest crisis of leadership. By turns heroic and calculating, compassionate and utterly merciless, Alexander recounts with a warrior's unflinching eye for detail the blood, the terror, and the tactics of his greatest battlefield victories. Whether surviving his father's brutal assassination, presiding over a massacre, or weeping at the death of a beloved comrade-in-arms, Alexander never denies the hard realities of the code by which he lives- the virtues of war. But as much as he was feared by his enemies, he was loved and revered by his friends, his generals, and the men who followed him into battle. Often outnumbered, never outfought, Alexander conquered every enemy the world stood against him-but the one he never saw coming. . . .

Reviews

Praise for Tides of War:
Pressfield serves up not just hair-raising scenesbut many moments of valor and cowardice, lust and bawdy humor.Even more impressively, he delivers a nuanced portrait of ancient Athens.Esquire

Unabashedly brilliant, epic, intelligent, and moving.Kirkus Reviews

and for Gates of Fire:
Vivid and exciting, Pressfield gives the reader a perspective no ancient historian offers, a soldierseye viewremarkable. -The New York Times Book Review

Gates of Fire lives up to its billing as an epic novel.His Greeks and Persians come across as the real thing.San Francisco Chronicle

Author Bio

STEVEN PRESSFIELD is the author of the novels, Last of the Amazons, The Legend of Bagger Vance, Gates of Fire and Tides of War. He lives in California where he is at work on his next historical novel.