Alexander the Great: (Norman F. Cantor, 2005 (published posthumously))

Short and highly readable, maybe that was the author's point? This was so cursory it was hardly worth the bother. Anyway, it's still an interesting summary of things Alexander.

There were a couple of useful perspectives, including that Alexander was primarily an adventurer with some good administrative skills; the author thinks he gets way too much credit for empire-building, when in fact pretty much everything fell apart right after his death. Cantor also does a good job of putting Alexander into the context of his time; points out that the Greeks often were romanticized yet constantly fought, mistreated women, were regularly brutal, etc.

Cantor gets lots of favorable attention but I'm not going to pick up his stuff again. "In the Wake of the Plague" and "Inventing the Middle Ages" weren't that great, either.