The First One-Worlder

ALEXANDER THE GREAT (252 pp.) --Charles Alexander Robinson Jr.--Dutton ($3.75).

This brief portrait of the Macedonian who died at 33 with no more worlds to conquer is an attempt to correct what the author believes is one of history's greatest heresies--the estimate of Alexander as no more than a bloodthirsty conqueror. Professor Robinson of Brown University makes his hero the first man to work for "one world." His conclusions: Alexander originated the idea of the brotherhood of man, was the first ruler to encourage racial equality among his subjects, "ultimately conceived the idea of a common culture for the world."

In supporting this theory, the author trails Alexander across Egypt to India in one of history's bloodiest military expeditions. "The Grand Army was destined to march . . . many thousands of miles, often at terrific speed, during eleven long years, [accompanied by] artists, poets, philosophers, historians." Robinson writes of how Alexander's army felled "terrifying elephants . . . half-naked hairy people . . . whales." Against the whales, his sailors "arranged their boats as in a sea battle . . . the trumpets sounded, the men shouted and the ships charged the beasts, which dived in fright. . . ."

But Alexander's military ingenuity is presented more convincingly than his moral idealism. Not even sympathetic Professor Robinson can blink at the conqueror's self-deification, and the cost of his mission in terms of human life.

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