Alexander the Great: Conqueror of the known world whose Macedonian phalanx defeated all who dared challenge it. Poisoned at the peak of his power by an unknown hand. Who shall succeed him? On his death-bed, Alexander left his empire "to the strongest." In doing so he condemned the vast empire he had ruled to a catastrophic series of civil wars as his generals tried to carve out realms of their own. As old friends and allies turn on each other in a deadly struggle to prove themselves "the strongest", a bitter and relentless blood feud cuts them down, one by one. With their eyes fixed on the battlefield, Alexander's Generals never realize that their deadliest enemy is a man they believe to be already dead. The only thing they might think more unlikely than their enemy is the unconventional ally he has chosen to aid him in bringing about their destruction.

Here is a narrative account of decisive engagements that succeeded by brilliant strategy more than by direct force. The reader accompanies those who fought, from Roman legionaries and Mongol horsemen to Napoleonic soldiery, and Douglas MacArthur's Inchon invaders. Maps. Illustrations.

Field Marshal Alexander Leslie was the highest ranking commander from the British Isles to serve in the Thirty Years’ War. Though Leslie’s life provides the thread that runs through this work, the authors use his story to explore the impacts of the Thirty Years’ War, the British Civil Wars and the age of Military Revolution.

What can we learn from the stunning rise and mysterious death of the ancient world’s greatest conqueror? An acclaimed biographer reconstructs the life of Alexander the Great in this magisterial revisionist portrait. “[An] infectious sense of narrative momentum . . . Its energy is unflagging, including the verve with which it tackles that teased final mystery about the specific cause of Alexander’s death.”—The Christian Science Monitor More than two millennia have passed since Alexander the Great built an empire that stretched to every corner of the ancient world, from the backwater kingdom of Macedonia to the Hellenic world, Persia, and ultimately to India—all before his untimely death at age thirty-three. Alexander believed that his empire would stop only when he reached the Pacific Ocean. But stories of both real and legendary events from his life have kept him evergreen in our imaginations with a legacy that has meant something different to every era: in the Middle Ages he became an exemplar of knightly chivalry, he was a star of Renaissance paintings, and by the early twentieth century he’d even come to resemble an English gentleman. But who was he in his own time? In Alexander the Great, Anthony Everitt judges Alexander’s life against the criteria of his own age and considers all his contradictions. We meet the Macedonian prince who was naturally inquisitive and fascinated by science and exploration, as well as the man who enjoyed the arts and used Homer’s great epic the Iliad as a bible. As his empire grew, Alexander exhibited respect for the traditions of his new subjects and careful judgment in administering rule over his vast territory. But his career also had a dark side. An inveterate conqueror who in his short life built the largest empire up to that point in history, Alexander glorified war and was known to commit acts of remarkable cruelty. As debate continues about the meaning of his life, Alexander's death remains a mystery. Did he die of natural causes—felled by a fever—or did his marshals, angered by his tyrannical behavior, kill him? An explanation of his death can lie only in what we know of his life, and Everitt ventures to solve that puzzle, offering an ending to Alexander’s story that has eluded so many for so long.

Alexander M. McCook, one of the youngest major generals in the Union army, was a member of a patriotic family from Ohio that became known as the "Fighting McCooks." He participated in some of the bloodiest campaigns of the Civil War, including Bull Run, Shiloh, Perryville, Stones River and Chickamauga. In battle, McCook could be rash and reckless, but his personal courage was beyond reproach, even as his career was marked by controversy. Subjected to an inquiry into his conduct at the battle of Chickamauga, he was cleared of all charges but relieved of command to spend the remainder of the war in relatively minor assignments. This biography, focusing especially on McCook's Civil War service, fills out the full picture of a proud if clouded career.

More than two million men served in the Union forces during the American Civil War. Of them, most are forgotten but Andrew Alexander should not be. Alexander’s four years of unbroken service during the Rebellion, and twenty-two years of life on the frontier earned him a place that should be more notable. His friends remembered him as a man of great courage, integrity, and physical perfection. He fought at Gettysburg and other great battles of the war. One of those friends, General James H. Wilson, tried to make sure he was not forgotten by authoring this biography of Alexander in 1887. He recounts the early part of the Civil War when Alexander was called to Washington to serve on the staff of General George B. McClellan. But it wasn't long before he was in the thick of the fighting as a cavalry officer, eventually being breveted as a major-general. After the Civil War, he served out west in the frontier until ill health took him away. For the first time, this long out-of-print volume is available as an affordable, well-formatted book for e-readers and smartphones. Be sure to LOOK INSIDE by clicking the cover above or download a sample.

At a campaign stop when he was running for president, Ulysses S. Grant asked to stop by the grave of his friend and fellow West Point cadet, Alexander Hays, who had fallen at the Battle of the Wilderness. Newsmen reported that Grant openly wept at the graveside. After having played a pivotal role commanding the forces that turned back Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg, and having exposed himself on other open battlefields, the dense Wilderness was not the place to have expected Hays to fall. At Gettysburg, it was later written: "We cannot summarize here what Hays' Division did on the third day when the final blow, embodied in Pickett's and Pettigrew's charge, fell directly upon their front. When the fight ended that afternoon fifteen colors and over two thousand prisoners fell into their hands. Magnificently were they led by their division commander [Hays]." On hearing of his death in battle, Grant quietly remarked as he sat beneath a tree, "He was a man who would never follow, but would always lead in battle." Here is the definitive biography of Major General Alexander Hays, from childhood to West Point to the Mexican War and on to the American Civil War. Every memoir of the American Civil War provides us with another view of the catastrophe that changed the country forever. For the first time, this long out-of-print volume is available as an affordable, well-formatted book for e-readers and smartphones. Be sure to LOOK INSIDE by clicking the cover above or download a sample.