Alexander the Great’s Art of Strategy: The Timeless Lessons of History’s Greatest Empire Builder
On the odd chance anyone doesn’t know, Alexander the Great was a Macedonian king who by the time of his death at age 33, had conquered nearly the entirety of the known world, and while his empire was divided after his death, the results of it, including the Seleucid and Ptolemaic empires, lived on for generations. Alexander the Great is one of the most studied and mythologized people in all of history.
Like many, many people, I have been fascinated by the life, achievement and temperment of Alexander the Great since I was quite young. I remember studying Alexander the Great in grade school history classes as vividly as I remember focusing the major academic paper of my first year of college on Alexander the Great. All of which is to say, that for a lay person, this is a subject I am extremely knowledgeable about. I have easily read at least twenty non-fiction books on the subject, and have also dabbled extensively in the fictionalized novels about Alexander the Great that abound (the trilogies by Renault and Manfredi being perhaps the most notable).
You should also be aware that prior to embarking on a creative career, I worked in business as a mid-level manager for about ten years, and as such the issues in any business book are germain to the experiences and issues I encountered. Additionally though, I worked in the Internet industry, which was rife with people who couldn’t manage and read too many management books.
The synthesis of my knowledge about Alexander the Great and my own experience in the business world led to a very strong skepticism as I opened Partha Bose’s Alexander the Great’s Art of Strategy: The Timeless Leadership Lessons of History’s Greatest Empire Builder, which I was ultimately drawn to because of the praise it had received both from mentors directly in my life, and figures I admire.
The first thing one notices upon beginning this book, is how deeply passionate about the subject Partha Bose is. Something of an amateur historian himself, Bose makes it clear that this book was written out of his own passions for the history of Alexander the Great, and that his primary goal is not just to impart business knowledge, but to encourage the same enjoyment of Alexander the Great’s history as he himself possesses.
In this regard, Alexander the Great’s Art of Strategy: The Timeless Leadership Lessons of History’s Greatest Empire Builder is wonderfully successful. Even as I knew about most aspects of Alexander the Great addressed in the book in more detail than Bose had the luxury of going into – his recounting of these incidents in Alexander the Great’s life are fresh, humorous and exciting, and I was constantly impressed with Bose’s vocabulary – which was rich and often elicited a smile from me for its utilization of particularly precise and mellifluous words to pinpoint his exact meaning. Certainly, Alexander the Great’s Art of Strategy: The Timeless Leadership Lessons of History’s Greatest Empire Builder is written with more precision than most I encounter.
If you do not already possess a passion for Alexander the Great, you will be hooked.
So how’s the business advice? Well, on the one hand, much of it addresses things you should already know, and probably do. However, Alexander the Great’s Art of Strategy: The Timeless Leadership Lessons of History’s Greatest Empire Builder encourages a mindfulness of tactics we often take for granted or give short shrift because of our cultural obsession with dubious ethics as being intellectually superior. What Bose reminds us of is that simple is often most effective, and that trust, issued carefully, is more critical and more useful than deciding everyone in the enemy. For most established managers this book is less likely to change how you do business, than to remind you how you want to do business, and help you refocus and refine your strategies. For newer managers, this book will help you avoid the pitfalls of wanting to seem to smart, too clever or too ruthless as opposed to just getting the job done. For people at all levels, the book offers inspiration, a reminder that while Alexander the Great was an incredible fluke of genetics, education and timing (among other factors), there is something of that nobility, ambition and success in us all.
I will also note that Alexander the Great’s Art of Strategy: The Timeless Leadership Lessons of History’s Greatest Empire Builder contains wonderful trivia on a range of things – from the development of modern officer training techniques in the US Military, to the astounding fact that the number of films made in India about the life of Alexander the Great is roughly equal to the total of feature films made on any subject in the English language.
For those that are particularly knowledgeable about the history of Alexander the Great, there will be moments of frustration, even though the author warns us early and often this is not a history tome and much had to be left out to make the book valuable in the way it was intended to be. Even so, it seems absurdist for Bose to spend so much time addressing the loyalty among Alexander the Great and his Companions without also at least acknowledging the fact that Hephaestion was Alexander’s lover for most of his life. And while not strictly necessary to the book’s management perspective, I can’t help but think it would have been a worthy note on which to introduce a section on the very difficult task of managing the personal and professional both in and outside the office.
All in all, I strongly recommend Alexander the Great’s Art of Strategy: The Timeless Leadership Lessons of History’s Greatest Empire Builder to a wide range of audiences. It won’t answer everything – either about Alexander the Great or management strategy, but it will inspire, motivate and amuse, and will easily be a book you turn to again and again, not merely for advice, but to recognize yourself.
Alexander the Great’s Art of Strategy: The Timeless Leadership Lessons of History’s Greatest Empire Builder would also make an excellent gift, as it is far more personal and meaningful than most management books on the market. Were I currently mentoring anyone, I would certainly give it, and were I someone’s mentee, I’d be deeply touched by it.
