Alexander's Tomb: The Two-Thousand Year Obsession to Find the Lost Conquerer

by Nicholas J. Saunders

Overview

Alexander the Great is a towering figure in world history, but despite our long-held fascination with him, his burial site is unknown. The search for Alexander's tomb began soon after his untimely death in 323 B.C. and continues even today. The epic pursuit of the tomb spans continents and centuries, and involves some of history's most iconic figures. This is the story not of a brief and spectacular life, but of a momentous and unexplained death, multiple burials, and the seemingly never-ending quest for a man-god's final resting place. Bringing together thousands of years of speculation, as well as new questions about the ramifications of actually solving the puzzle, Alexander's Tomb is a fascinating look at one of archaeology's greatest mysteries.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780465006212
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	07/30/2007
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
File size:	17 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Nicholas J. Saunders is a lecturer in the department of anthropology at University College, London, and a regular commentator on British television and radio.

Table of Contents

	Preface	ix
	Acknowledgments	xiii
Book 1	A Sovereign Profession: The Rise of Medical Authority and the Shaping of the Medical System
	Introduction: The Social Origins of Professional Sovereignty	3
	The Roots of Authority
	Dependence and Legitimacy
	Cultural Authority and Occupational Control
	Steps in a Transformation
	The Growth of Medical Authority
	From Authority to Economic Power
	Strategic Position and the Defense of Autonomy
Chapter 1	Medicine in a Democratic Culture, 1760-1850	30
	Domestic Medicine
	Professional Medicine
	From England to America
	Professional Education on an Open Market
	The Frustration of Professionalism
	The Medical Counterculture
	Popular Medicine
	The Thomsonians and the Frustration of Anti-Professionalism
	The Eclipse of Legitimate Complexity
Chapter 2	The Expansion of the Market	60
	The Emerging Market Before the Civil War
	The Changing Ecology of Medical Practice
	The Local Transportation Revolution
	Work, Time, and the Segregation of Disorder
	The Market and Professional Autonomy
Chapter 3	The Consolidation of Professional Authority, 1850-1930	79
	Physicians and Social Structure in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America
	Class
	Status
	Powerlessness
	Medicine's Civil War and Reconstruction
	The Origins of Medical Sectarianism
	Conflict and Convergence
	Licensing and Organization
	Medical Education and the Restoration of Occupational Control
	Reform from Above
	Consolidating the System
	The Aftermath of Reform
	The Retreat of Private Judgment
	Authority over Medication
	Ambiguity and Competence
	The Renewal of Legitimate Complexity
Chapter 4	The Reconstitution of the Hospital	145
	The Inner Transformation
	Hospitals Before and After 1870
	The Making of the Modern Hospital
	The Triumph of the Professional Community
	The Pattern of the Hospital System
	Class, Politics, and Ethnicity
	The Peculiar Bureaucracy
Chapter 5	The Boundaries of Public Health	180
	Public Health, Private Practice
	The Dispensary and the Limits of Charity
	Health Departments and the Limits of Government
	From Reform to the Checkup
	The Modernization of Dirt and the New Public Health
	The Prevention of Health Centers
Chapter 6	Escape from the Corporation, 1900-1930	198
	Professional Resistance to Corporate Control
	Company Doctors and Medical Companies
	Consumers' Clubs
	The Origins and Limits of Private Group Practice
	Capitalism and the Doctors
	Why No Corporate Enterprise in Medical Care?
	Professionalism and the Division of Labor
	The Economic Structure of American Medicine
Book 2	The Struggle for Medical Care: Doctors, the State, and the Coming of the Corporation
Chapter 1	The Mirage of Reform	235
	A Comparative Perspective
	The Origins of Social Insurance
	Why America Lagged
	Grand Illusions, 1915-1920
	The Democratization of Efficiency
	Labor and Capital Versus Reform
	Defeat Comes to the Progressives
	Evolution in Defeat, 1920-1932
	The New Deal and Health Insurance, 1932-1943
	The Making of Social Security
	The Depression, Welfare Medicine, and the Doctors
	A Second Wind
	Symbolic Politics, 1943-1950
	Socialized Medicine and the Cold War
	Three Times Denied
Chapter 2	The Triumph of Accommodation	290
	The Birth of the Blues, 1929-1945
	The Emergence of Blue Cross
	Holding the Line
	The Physicians' Shield
	The Rise of Private Social Security, 1945-1959
	Enter the Unions
	A Struggle for Control
	The Growth of Prepaid Group Practice
	The Commercial Edge
	The Accommodation of Insurance
Chapter 3	The Liberal Years	335
	Aid and Autonomy, 1945-1960
	Public Investment in Science
	The Tilt Toward the Hospital
	The Structural Impact of Postwar Policy
	The New Structure of Opportunity
	The New Structure of Power
	Redistribution without Reorganization, 1961-1969
	The Liberal Opportunity
	Redistributive Reform and Its Impact
	The Politics of Accommodation
Chapter 4	End of a Mandate	379
	Losing Legitimacy, 1970-1974
	Discovery of a Crisis
	The Contradictions of Accommodation
	The Generalization of Rights
	The Conservative Assimilation of Reform
	Health Policy in a Blocked Society, 1975-1980
	An Obstructed Path
	The Generalization of Doubt
	The Liberal Impasse
	The Reprivatization of the Public Household
Chapter 5	The Coming of the Corporation	420
	Zero-Sum Medical Practice
	The Doctor "Surplus" and Competition
	Collision Course
	The Growth of Corporate Medicine
	Elements of the Corporate Transformation
	The Consolidation of the Hospital System
	The Decomposition of Voluntarism
	The Trajectory of Organization
	Doctors, Corporations, and the State
	Notes	450
	Index	496

What People are Saying About This

H. Jack Geiger

"The definitive social history of the medical profession in America....A monumental achievement."

Editorial Reviews

Although the heroic exploits of Alexander the Great have been memorialized in fiction, films and biographies, the location of his tomb remains a mystery. British anthropologist Saunders (People of the Jaguar), an armchair Indiana Jones, deftly chronicles the various searches for Alexander's tomb by pharaohs, Christian emperors and archeologists from antiquity to the present. As Saunders tells it, while Alexander's corpse lay in state in Babylon in 321 B.C., a power battle among his generals led one of them, Ptolemy, to steal the corpse and carry it to Memphis in Egypt for burial. Later Ptolemy moved the body to Alexandria; 70 years later, one of Ptolemy's sons moved the body yet again to a more ostentatious home in Alexandria. Cleopatra plundered the tomb, and when Christianity became Rome's official religion in the fourth century A.D., Alexander's tomb may have been among the many pagan shrines and tombs destroyed throughout the empire. In 2004, one scholar speculated that Alexander's body lay beneath the altar of St. Mark's Church in Venice, buried by ninth-century Christians who mistook Alexander's remains for those of Saint Mark. Saunders's lively prose draws readers into this compelling tale of conquest, political intrigue and the aura surrounding one of history's great heroes. 16 pages of b&w photos. (July) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

In 323 B.C.E., Alexander the Great died in Babylon at the age of 33 after having conquered (or liberated) lands under Persian domination from Egypt to Afghanistan and as far as India. Alexander's body was mummified (unlike those of his royal predecessors) and lay in state in that city until 321 B.C.E., when Ptolemy diverted the Macedonia-bound funeral cortege to Egypt in order to gain legitimacy for his own ambitions there. Saunders (anthropology, University Coll. London; People of the Jaguar) has written the only English-language monograph currently available for a general audience on the mystery and cultural significance-down to the present day-of Alexander's tomb. The narrative is intertwined with the history of Alexandria, the city founded by Alexander in 331 B.C.E. during his campaign in Egypt and the site of his mausoleum. Such potent figures as Napoleon, Nelson, and archaeologist Howard Carter (of King Tut fame) shared a fascination for Alexander. Useful resources provided by the author include a glossary, a substantial bibliography, a "Dramatis Personae," and a time line extending from Alexander's birth through 2004. Recommended for public libraries. (Some illustrations and index not seen.)-Edward K. Werner, St. Lucie Cty. Lib. Syst., Ft. Pierce, FL Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

....This important book is written with wit, irony and great style. --The New York Times Books of the Century

Charles McGrath