In 330 BC, Alexander the Great conquers the city of Persepolis, the ceremonial capital of the Persian Empire. His troops later burn it to the ground, capping centuries of tensions between the Hellenistic Greeks and Macedonians and the Persians.
That event kicks off Rachel Kousser’s book Alexander at the End of the World: The Forgotten Final Years of Alexander the Great (Mariner Books, 2024), which tells the story of how Alexander—the unbeaten military genius and the most powerful man in that part of the world—decided to keep going, chasing rebellious ex-Persians and launching an unprecedented invasion of India.
But what drove Alexander to keep marching? What was the kind of empire Alexander wanted to build? And why did he eventually turn back at the Indus River, his soldiers begging for him to return home?
Rachel Kousser is the chair of the Classics department at the Graduate Center, City University of New York and a professor of ancient art and archaeology at Brooklyn College. She is also the author of The Afterlives of Greek Sculpture: Interaction, Transformation, Destruction (Cambridge University Press: 2017) and Hellenistic and Roman Ideal Sculpture: The Allure of the Classical (Cambridge University Press: 2008).
She can be followed on Instagram at @rkousser.
You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Alexander at the End of the World. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.
Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon.
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Rachel Kousser, "Alexander at the End of the World: The Forgotten Final Years of Alexander the Great" (Mariner Books, 2024) | New Books in Middle Eastern Studies podcast - Listen or read transcript on Metacast
