...ALEXANDER THE GREAT: HERO, HUMANITARIAN, OR MANIAC? INTRODUCTION Alexander the Great is by all historical accounts one of the most influential figures of history. He was the son of Philip II, the King of Macedon who conquered Greece in 338 B.C. but was assassinated soon thereafter. Alexander thus became king at the age of seventeen (in 336 B.C. ), and at the age of twenty he set off to conquer the known world. In a series of lightning campaigns he conquered the Persian Empire that had until then been invincible, and in a certain sense he avenged Greece for the earlier Persian Wars. He marched through Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Persia, conquering all before him. In monumental battles he defeated the Persians at Granicus (334 B.C.), Issus (333 B.c.), and Gaugamela (331 B.c.). He drove his soldiers on, crossing the mountains and deserts of central Asia, until he reached the borders of India (326 B.C.). There he finally turned back, retreating to Babylon, where he established his court. At Babylon he fell sick and suddenly died, at only thirty-two years of age (323 B.c.). Alexander hardly had time to organize his new empire, and this makes it all but impossible to know how he would have been as a ruler, instead of a conqueror. After his death, Alexander's empire fell apart and was ruled by his successors, Macedonian generals who became kings of independent areas. Most of these rulers continued Alexander's policies of toleration and cultural integration. Alexander's...
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...SHATZ Paper No. 305 1984 CLASS' STALIN, THE GREAT PURGE, AND RUSSIAN HISTORY: A NEW LOOK AT THE 'NEW CLASS' ~ MARSHALL SHATZ Paper No. 305 1984 Marshall S. Shatz received his B.A. from Harvard College and his M.A., Certificate of the Russian Institute, and Ph.D. from Columbia University. He edited The Essential Works of Anarchism (New York: Bantam Books, 1971; Quadrangle Books, 1972) and is the author of Soviet Dissent in Historical ¥erspective (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980). He is Professor of History, University of Massachusetts at Boston. 1 STALIN; THE GREAT PURGE; AND RUSSIAN HIsroRY: A NEW IOOK AT '!HE • NEW CLASS' Though nearly fifty years in the past; Stalin •s Great Purge of the 1930s still loans as one of the nost enigmatic events of the twentieth century. Whether we think of the Great Purge as a IOOre or less continuous process fran the assassination of Kirov in 1934 to Ezhov's replacement by Beria as head of the secret police at the em of 1938; or limit it to the EzhoVshchina of 1937 and 1938; When the terror reached its peak; operation is astounding. the sheer nagnitude of the The nuniber of arrests; deportations; imprisonments; and lives lost in these years is impossible to measure; and attempts to do so have varied wildly. Even the lOi/est estimates; however; are staggering.l It is not merely the size of the Great Purge that makes it such a historical puzzle; however;...
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