“Rachel Kousser’s new biography, “Alexander at the End of the World: The Forgotten Final Years of Alexander the Great,” is a breath of fresh air on its subject. Kousser neatly sums up the myth of Alexander’s “trajectory from upstanding Macedonian monarch to corrupt, violent Oriental despot” and then spends a few hundred pages refuting it.” — Valerie Castellanos Clark, Los Angeles Times
ATW interview with Rachel Kousser, Advice to Writers, October 8, 2024.
Ilyon Woo and Rachel Kousser on the Power of a Writing Partnership, The Craft of Writing newsletter, Lithub, October 2, 2024
“An Interview with Rachel Kousser,” John Grady, September 10, 2024, Washington Independent Review of Books
“Unable to stand still, the 32-year-old conqueror was on the cusp of invading Arabia when death intervened. It was this final stage of his military career — teeming with brutality, conspiracies, compromises, failures, reversals and near mutinies — that, Kousser argues, made him great. Her prose is bracing and her descriptive powers rise admirably to the task of portraying the world in which Alexander operated.” — Justin Marozzi, New York Times
“A thoughtful, elegant study that sheds new light on an endlessly fascinating historical figure.” — Kirkus Reviews
“Kousser puts flesh and bone on the world-beating figure who has long been ossified into a boring lesson in hubris. Oh he has hubris by the buckets, but Alexander has so much more and Kousser plumbs his contradictions and likely motivations with skill and verve.” — Michael Giltz, Parade.com (Best New Book Releases This Month)
“The Best Reviewed Books of the Month,” Bookmarks, Lithub, July 31, 2024.
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