The Army of Alexander the Great (Men at Arms Series, 148) (Men-at-Arms, 148)

Like the entire series, this book delivers. Honestly these book are an amazing look at history through a series of microscopes.

These Osprey books usually are pretty accurate.... But this one is a rare exception. The order-of-battle information is OK, but when it comes to clothes and weapons of Alexander's troops, Sekunda is off in left field. He relies almost exclusively on the so-called "Alexander Sarcophagus". This was carved for a Phoenician client-king by imported Greek artists, and the protrayal of Macedonian troops on it seems to have been strongly affected by old Greek artistic conventions, e.g. "heroic nudity". Sekunda can't quite bring himself to believe that Macedonian infantry fought stark naked, but he does accept other features of these carvings that are strongly contradicted by the literary sources. The worst error is his claim that Alexander's infantry all used the old "Argive" or "hoplite" shield, which would make it impossible for them to use both hands to hold their long pikes. The illustrator has neatly dodged this issue by showing all the Macedonians fighting with only their swords in skirmishing or urban-warfare scenes. If you really want to know how Alexander's troops looked, find a copy of Duncan Head's ARMIES OF THE MACEDONIAN AND PUNIC WARS (1982) with has a much more complete treatment based on a variety of sources.

This was a very informative writing, and I enjoyed reading this book.

thank you

The text is a basic examination of Alexandrian Macedonian tactics, organization, gear, and command-something that can be found just about anywhere. The plates, by Angus McBride, are certainly not his best and fail to really show us what the common phalanx soldier with his sarissa pike would have looked like.

This Osprey doesen't have the quality as former Osprey books i have read.The author don't have the right sources to write a book upon the subject.Theres are lots of remarkable errors in the book.For example no companion cavalryman in the platesfights with armour on, and no pictures showing infantry with sarrisas(5m long spears) the weapon the Macedonians whas become famous with.The worst errors in the plates are soldiers hunting nude.Personally i like Angus McBride but this is not one of his better illustations.And for the writer, Nick Sekunda, his writng is terrible.I am very disappointed about this book.I had such high expections on this book becuse it is a so important subject.Alexander was that important subject, and im sad to now that we now so little about him, and espcially his fighting forces.Gustav Fils

I absolutely love the illustrations in this book: full of action and colour, they capture the vigor of an army that marched across and conquered the known world. The authorship suffers from the usual MAA format constraints (hence the three stars).

Excellent book very well written , well worth the price no complaints

A couple of months ago, I bought this book as it was relatively cheap.Having read a couple of books on Alexander before, I was not expecting much from this 40pages book on Alexander's army but was curious.The author states in the introduction that he apologies for the size of the book and the superficiality of the contents, all of this due to the Osprey format and limitations.But in all honesty, the books if full of good information and amazingly densely packed. There is a lot of Ospreys where the authors waffle a lot and waste the precious allocated pages but this one is a success.you will find the main components of Alexander's army in there: the cavalry, the infantry, support weapons, cretan archers, etc.The author briefly touches the logistic issues and how soldiers actually feed themselves.In summary, a good title that may exite your curiosity for more on Alexander.

Un libro de muy hermosas ilustraciones y con la información necesaria para poder entender la forma en que estaba constituido el ejército que en su momento dominó el mundo con 100 mil soldados

Great subject with a lot of illustrations on an historical point that shows the unique place of Alexander the Great