interesting, lesser known facts about each general and answers common myths and misconceptions about them. Was Alexander referenced in the Qur'an? What were Caesar's last words? Was Napoleon really short? Includes bibliographies for further reading. Over the last 2,000 years, ambitious men have dreamed of conquering vast empires and attaining eternal glory in battle, but of all the men who took steps toward such dreams, few were as successful as Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan, and Napoleon Bonaparte. Over the last 200 years, generals like Robert E. Lee and George Patton hoped to score decisive victories like Napoleon, while Napoleon aimed to emulate the accomplishments of Julius Caesar, whose campaigns in Gaul and against Pompey decided the fate of Rome. But Caesar himself found inspiration in Alexander the Great, the Macedonian King who managed to stretch an empire from Greece to the Himalayas in Asia at just 30 years old. It took less than 15 years for Alexander to conquer much of the known world. Hannibal has the distinction of being the only man who nearly brought Rome to its knees before its decline almost 700 years later. Rome never suffered a more horrifying defeat in its history than at Cannae, and indeed, Hannibal nearly rewrote the course of Western history during the Second Punic War. In a world fascinated by men like Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan is one of history’s greatest and most famous conquerors. No man, before or since, has ever started with so little and gone on to achieve so much. From a noble family but raised in poverty that drove him to the brink of starvation, Genghis Khan rose to control the second-largest empire the world has ever known (the largest being, arguably, the British Empire of the 18th and 19th centuries), and easily the largest empire conquered by a single man.

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