Alexander the Great's Art of Strategy

Citation

(2003), "Alexander the Great's Art of Strategy", Work Study, Vol. 52 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/ws.2003.07952fae.001

Alexander the Great's Art of Strategy

Alexander the Great's Art of Strategy

Partha BoseISBN: 1 86197 432 9£14.99

Alexander the Great is arguably one of history's greatest strategists. Born in 356 BC the son of King Philip II, he was taught by Aristotle – though he did readily fit the contemplative life of the philosopher. He was not helped by circumstance, however. His father was assassinated and Alexander was expected to assume power. He did this both quickly and gladly and started to build a great empire covering Greece, Persia, Afghanistan and as far as northern India.

He was lauded for a succession of great military victories, and for his personal bravery in battle. His achievements have influenced and inspired a large number of the military leaders that followed him.

This new book is perhaps timely, since it may just be the book for its age – the new age of US imperialism. As a former McKinsey consultant and now director of marketing for an international consultancy firm Monitor, Bose is both an advocate of, and an example of, US global influence.

The book's thesis is that modern management lessons can be learnt from Alexander's mastery of strategy and leadership. He suggests, for example, that Alexander was the first general to focus on tactical positioning rather than brute force; on learning to understand and exploit the local terrain; and on selecting careful exit and contingency strategies.

Bose's approach is to move between the historical period and a modern "equivalent" to draw out parallels between Alexander's strategies in battle and business strategies in, for example, the General Electric succession battle.

Some of these seem to hold true and act as convincing parallels; others less so. At times these conjunctions are too stretched for plausibility.

However, Bose's style means that the narrative is always interesting – both as a history and a management lesson – and readable. My knowledge of Alexander is not sufficient to know how selective Bose is of the episodes he chooses to include, but even that limited knowledge leads me to suspect that Bose does not tell the whole truth about the man or his life. As such, I was left enjoying the book but feeling that there was an even better book waiting to be written.