ALEXANDER THE GREAT - Penguin

Though, resolute, fearless, a born warrior, lover of Homer, drama and hunting, Alexander was also an impatient man of passionate ambitions, who understood the intense adventure of the unknown. When he died at thirty-two, his empire - from Greece to India - comprised two million square miles, and the vacuum he left was never properly filled. He had excelled of Greek culture on the ancient East and he had created a myth that is as potent today as it was then. Robin Lane Fox's accessible and erudite life of Alexander searches through the mass of conflicting evidence and legend to focus on the living actuality of the man and his experience - 'It is tempting', he concludes, 'to see in Alexander the romantic's complex nature for the first time in Greek history. Beautifully written, perceptive and fluent, it is a superb example of historical scholarship and psychological insight.