A Historical Biography of Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great lived before Christ, but he was driven by a vision of global unity as modern as today. Alexander is seen in many roles in our culture. The most famous of these is being a great general and conqueror of the world. During his short life, Alexander conquered the known world and helped spread the culture of the Greeks. Much of what he accomplished must be viewed in the circumstances of his time and his upbringing. Without these we may not have had the spread of Greek culture or even heard of the man called Alexander. I will discuss how Alexander was able to accomplish all of this in such a short time and the events and strategies that helped him along the way. To understand the events of his life you need to know the man. Alexander's father, Philip II influenced the events in the military and political areas that eventually helped Alexander in his conquests. When Philip took power in 359 B.C., Macedonia was in turmoil and he immediately set out to put the people under his control. Philip developed the Macedonian army and formed alliances with the Balkan peoples. Philip established many political reforms that made his state a great power. He increased the size of the Royal Companions/heairoi, which gave more people positions of power and a sense of belonging to the kingdom. Also, the sons of the nobles were allowed to receive education in the court of the king. The reason for this was that the sons would develop a strong loyalty to the king; furthermore it allowed Philip, in a sense, to keep the sons hostage from their parents, from interfering with his authority. On the military side, the battle of Chaeronea, in August of 338 B.C., helped put Athenians and Thebans under Macedonia control, which left Sparta the only Greek state not under Philip's authority.
Also, Philip introduced new weapons to the army, such as the 6-meter sarissa, a wooden pike with a metal tip used by the infantry in the phalanx. The sarissa when held upright in the phalanx (rows of eight), helped hide the maneuvers from the view of the enemy. If held horizontally by the front rows, it could penetrate from 20 feet away. Philip also made the military a full-time occupation that paid a salary, instead of a part-time job that it used to be. By doing this, the army was able to drill regularly, and build unity and cohesio...
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...xander the Great. Without this man accomplishing what he did, I can very easily say our world, culture, and history would be completely different. A map of Alexander's journey.
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Kendrick Pritchett in the introduction to the book "The Greek State at War" points out that in order to write history of Greek Warfare one
The son of Philip II, Alexander the Great, will become the conqueror of the western world. Alexander received the Macedonian empire when his father passed, he was only twenty at the time. As soon as he had the power of the Macedonian army, several lightning fast campaigns led them into the west and north. Next, he compelled the city-states that rebelled against the League of Corinth. This action demonstrated how Alexander punished disloyalty [Martin 244]. Alexander was able to keep his rule on the territories he conquered by rewarded the cities who recognized his powers and punished the individuals that betrayed his trust or ambitions. The power he possessed depended on his superior force and his unwillingly desire to use it [Martin 245]. The
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Imagination is a quality that everyone has, but only some are capable of using. Maxine Hong Kingston wrote “No Name Woman” using a great deal of her imagination. She uses this imagination to give a story to a person whose name has been forgotten. A person whose entire life was erased from the family’s history. Her story was not written to amuse or entertain, but rather to share her aunts’ story, a story that no one else would ever share. The use of imagination in Kingston’s creative nonfiction is the foundation of the story. It fills the gaps of reality while creating a perfect path to show respect to Kingston’s aunt, and simultaneously explains her disagreement with the women in her culture.
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Life of Alexander the Great of Macedonia is one of the most remarkable Ancient Greece stories that prevail even in this present era. The ancient Greek sources clearly identify the life of Alexander as the one which broaden our understanding about the heroes of the Ancient times. Plutarch parallel lives are one of the sources that equip classical study and any other studies with necessary details of how Alexander manifested his life as an Ancient Greek hero. However the invention of motion pictures (cinema) had created another dimension in analysing Life of Alexander. Firstly Robert Rossen released a life of Alexander a nearly half century ago, which did not make much effort addition to what literature has far reached, and it was argued that his film consist some inaccuracies. Oliver Stone, a screenwriter also wrote a Life of Alexander (2004-2005) and it reached its hype as a cinematic presentation and it also depicts nearly accurate historical information about the life of Alexander the great. Oliver Stone’s Life of Alexander remains the controversial presentation when studying the Life of Alexander. This short essay will critically investigate how Stone went about constructing his ‘biopic’ of Alexander, including a consideration of which episodes were included as well as those which were excluded.
In Maxine Kingston’s “No Name Woman” she retells the story about a tragic past family secret. Kingston reveals the horrible family dishonor of her aunt who committed suicide, and murdered her newborn son, by jumping into the family well in China. She continues to explain her thoughts and emotions evoked from her aunt’s actions. As time passes, Kingston’s opinion and thoughts change and her perspective is altered. Kingston shows an evolutionary change in opinion toward her aunt by explaining her different thoughts in different stages of her life.
Jarus, Owen. "Alexander the Great: Facts, Biography, and Accomplishments." 27 September 2013. livescience. Document. 27 October 2013.
Martin, Thomas R., “An Overview of Classical Greek History from Mycenae to Alexander.” Tufts University. N.d. Web. Feb 16, 2014. Retrieved from < http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0009%3Achapter%3D14>
The most important historical fact of Christianity is the life of Jesus, the prophet that the faith of Christians is centered around. The historical Jesus grew up in Nazareth where John the Baptist baptized him, thus beginning his career as a teacher and healer of God. Little is known about where Jesus came from or what he looks like, only his personality through actions and words. Like most prophets, Jesus looked to the spiritual world to find answers to remove the suffering; John was the prophet to open Jesus’ eyes to heaven, leading him into a state solitude until he became empowered by the Spirit. The actions that speak for his personality are of power to heal sickness, cast away evil, and perform miracles, all that the prophets gave credit to Jesus, but this what not the focus of his ministry. What drew people into Jesus was his hope to heal humanity, not just people; he urged peace and loving of the enemies, which created ties with the Pharisees. However, the Pharisees did not see God as compassion, so they created categories of clean and unclean people. Christianity is originally created for the undesirables, so Jesus felt that the boundaries were not exemplifying His compassion, thus he set out to change the system. This did not sit well with the Pharisees, so Jesus began to compiled enemies of Rome, which would lead to his crucifixion. It was the death of Jesus that began the Christianity faith, but his words and deeds that empowered the people. Jesus had no new teachings that were different from those before him, but he had a weight of meaning to his words. Christ’s teachings were mostly in the forms of stories where lessons of the heart lay behind the message. Not only did he speak with authority, but he spoke out ag...
Archibald, Zofia. Discovering the World of the Ancient Greeks. New York: Facts On File, 1991. Print.
The topic of race has always been a touchy subject due to the history behind it. The color of the skin tone determined the superior from the inferior and the dominant from the subservient, according to history. The presentation on 01/28, defines race as, “a socially constructed set of categories outlining a group of people who share a set of characteristics—typically, but not always, physical ones—and are said to share a common bloodline.” Race does not only consist of physical attributes but also socially constructed ones too. Race is much more than skin color. The statement, “Obama’s presidency is proof that racism no longer exists in the US,” I do not consider this to be true, therefore I disagree with the statement. Racism is still in existence and is prominent within the United States, whether people want to admit to it or not. Appointing Obama as the president does not prove that the issue of racism has completely vanished. The existence of racism is evident within institutions such as employment, economics, segregation, education, and the justice system.
Honour, Hugh, and John Fleming. "Hellenistic and Roman Art." A World History of Art. London: Laurence King, 1999. 179-213. Print.
“Arguments Concerning Scientific Realism” is Bas van Fraassen’s attack on the positive construction of science. He starts by defining scientific realism as the goal of science to provide a “literally true story of what the world is like;” and the “acceptance of a scientific theory” necessitates the “belief that it is true”. This definition contains two important attributes. The first attribute describes scientific realism as practical. The aim of science is to reach an exact truth of the world. The second attribute is that scientific realism is epistemic. To accept a theory one must believe that it is true. Van Fraassen acknowledges that a “literally true account” divides anti-realists into two camps. The first camp holds the belief that science’s aim is to give proper descriptions of what the world is like. On the other hand, the second camp believes that a proper description of the world must be given, but acceptance of corresponding theories as true is not necessary.
"Alexander the Great - National Geographic." YouTube. YouTube, 08 Apr. 2012. Web. 05 Feb. 2014.