Philip and Alexander

During his short life Alexander the Great carved out an empire stretching from the Balkans to Central India, re-writing the map of the ancient world.

Yet Alexander represents only half of the story, for his success was not just the product of his own genius, restless energy, and ambition, but was built on decades of effort by his father. Philip II of Macedon is primarily recognised for being Alexander the Great's father, the old man, one-eyed and limping, whose convenient assassination allowed Alexander the Great to come to power and to embark on his epic campaigns. But there was far more to his career than this. Through decades of hard-fighting, clever diplomacy, and sheer personal determination, he unified his country and subjected Greece and many of the lands bordering Macedon.

In this joint biography, Adrian Goldsworthy investigates how during their two lifetimes Philip and Alexander transformed Macedon from an unimportant, weak and barbarous kingdom into an enormous empire covering most of the known world.