Publisher's Synopsis
Alexander's saga, the Saga of Alexander the Great, was most probably presented by an Icelander as a gift to the joint kings of Norway in the winter of 1262-3. The Icelander, abbot Brandr Jonsson, had just been appointed bishop of Holar by the Norwegian hierarchy, thus becoming the first native of Iceland for several decades to occupy an Icelandic see. And 1262 was the very year in which Iceland finally succumbed to pressure and became part of the Norwegian empire. Keeping these events in sight without laying undue emphasis on them, The Ethics of Empire examines the thinking of the saga in contrast with that of its source, Walter of Chatillons Alexandreis, the most successful Latin epic of the Middle Ages.
