In his brief foreword, Krensky reports both the scarcity of ancient sources and the difficulty in determining their reliability, and he indicates which of these sources he has drawn on. Although Krensky makes "some educated guesses" in reconstructing Alexander's life, he does not fictionalize his subject and announces plainly when he is speculating about the cause of some event. Krensky enriches the story by sometimes presenting alternative legendary accounts of a single event. The author enlivens the early chapters by recounting such famous legends as the child Alexander's entertaining visiting Persian envoys, his taming of the wild horse Bucephalus, and his "solving" the riddle of the Gordian knot. Krensky's style is elegantly simple, concise, and generally clear, although he sometimes neglects to identify his topics directly or locate regions whose names he introduces.