Thammasat University students interested in history, political science, Greece, gender studies, film, and related subjects may find a new book useful.

Masculine Ideals and Alexander the Great: An Exemplary Man in the Roman and Medieval World is an Open Access book available for free download at this link:

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-mono/10.4324/9781003406358

Its author is Dr. Jaakkojuhani Peltonen, a postdoctoral researcher at Tampere University, Finland.

The Thammasat University Library collection includes other books about different aspects of the life and career of Alexander the Great.

King Alexander the Great, ruler of Macedon, Egypt and Persia who lived from 356 to 323 before the Christian era (BCE).

Although he died when he was in his thirties, Alexander managed to conquer an empire reaching from the Balkans to what is Pakistan today. Still considered one of the most accomplished military commanders, Alexander was fortunate to have a distinguished instructor when he was a teenager. His teacher was the Greek philosopher Aristotle.

Among the many opinions of Alexander expressed by historians is this one by the noted author Ernst Badian:

After fighting, scheming and murdering in pursuit of the secure tenure of absolute power, he found himself at last on a lonely pinnacle over an abyss, with no use for his power and security unattainable. His genius was such that he ended an epoch and began another – but one of unceasing war and misery, from which exhaustion produced an approach to order after two generations and peace at last under the Roman Empire.

He himself never found peace. One is tempted to see him, in medieval terms, as the man who sold his soul to the Devil for power: the Devil kept his part of the bargain but ultimately claimed his own. But to the historian, prosaically such allegory, we must put it differently: to him, when he has done all the work – work that must be done, and done carefully – of analysing the play of faction and the system of government, Alexander illustrates with startling clarity the ultimate loneliness of supreme power.

• Ernst Badian, Studies in Greek and Roman History, Alexander the Great and the Loneliness of Power, 1964 p. 204

The publisher’s description of Masculine Ideals and Alexander the Great reads:

From premodern societies onward, humans have constructed and produced images of ideal masculinity to define the roles available for boys to grow into, and images for adult men to imitate. The figure of Alexander the Great has fascinated people both within and outside academia. As a historical character, military commander, cultural figure and representative of the male gender, Alexander’s popularity is beyond dispute.

Almost from the moment of his death Alexander’s deeds have had a paradigmatic aspect: for over 2300 years he has been represented as a paragon of manhood – an example to be followed by other men – and through his myth people have negotiated assumptions about masculinity. This work breaks new ground by considering the ancient and medieval reception of Alexander the Great from a gender studies perspective.

It explores the masculine ideals of the Greco-Roman and medieval past through the figure of Alexander the Great, analysing the gendered views of masculinities in those periods and relates them to the ways in which Alexander’s masculinity was presented. It does this by investigating Alexander’s appearance and its relation to definitions of masculinity, the way his childhood and adulthood are presented, his martial performance and skill, proper and improper sexual behaviour, and finally through his emotions and mental attributes.

Masculine Ideals and Alexander the Great will appeal to students and scholars alike as well as to those more generally interested in the portrayal of masculinity and gender, particularly in relation to Alexander the Great and his image throughout history.

Dr. Peltonen observes:

This book is not about the historical Alexander, but about how Alexander has been used to represent ideals of masculinity in different historical periods. The overarching research questions of this book are as follows: what masculine ideals did the stories of Alexander the Great promote in the premodern world, and how were these gender ideals reproduced to strengthen or critique the predominant expectations of men. in a way, the story of Alexander the Great can be read as a case study of western masculine ideals.

It has never been just a historical story of a young monarch who conquered lands and empires.  Already during his lifetime Alexander became a mythologised figure, and after he died at the age of 32 years, like a modern-day rock star at the peak of his success, he has continued as an object of the utmost fascination as well a subject of strong critique.

From Classical antiquity even to the modern world, the stories around this male figure’s alleged deeds and sayings have had a paradigmatic aspect: for over 2300 years, he has been a paragon of manhood, symbolising the exemplary man, and through his myth people have negotiated assumptions about masculinity. This book explores the masculine ideals of the Greco-Roman and medieval  past.  It explores ideas of exemplary manhood and manliness through the figure of Alexander the Great.

This study analyses the different aspects of desired and contested manhood created and maintained by the male elite authors and artists in their texts and visual portraits of Alexander. It pays attention to the gendered views of masculinities in the Greco-Roman and Medieval world and compares them to the ways Alexander’s masculinity is presented. 

Many of the ideas appearing in the source material can still be recognised in the modern world and our contemporary gendered views on male ideals. […]

Gender as a cultural concept is created in exemplary stories and myths of old.  Visualised narratives have always played a role in shaping ideas of normative behaviour patterns. For this very reason, a historian might choose to start the opening chapter of his book discussing the history of masculinity with a quotation from a Hollywood film narrative, for instance, Oliver Stone’s Alexander. Films, because of their visual and narrative effectiveness, provide a unique forum to display ideals of masculinity. 

One can argue as to whether they merely reflect the existing values and expectations or aim to engender a discussion that might alter them. However, with their potential to reach a worldwide audience, one should not underestimate their importance when analysing the continuity and change of masculine ideas. Interestingly, instead of inventing “new” or different ideals of masculinity, these films often simply recycle Classical ideals, such as embodied masculinities deriving from Classical art.

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)