Amidst the hoopla over the Oliver Stone film (discussed infra, here and here), Christopher Hitchens wrote a very thoughtful piece acknowledging Alexander's strengths and weaknesses, while touching on the implications for Western civilization:

Alexander himself was not above using myth for propaganda purposes. He claimed descent from Achilles, the hero of Troy, and from Zeus himself. He took the work of Homer with him wherever he went. He wanted to be acknowledged as Pharaoh in Egypt—the loftiest of all aspirations in those days—and also to be recognized as a god by those who worshipped the Olympian pantheon. Alexandros Megalos, to give him his Greek sobriquet, reminds us of the root of our word "megalomania." But should he be compared with the other great despots of antiquity, or with more modern totalitarians and butchers?

A very absorbing recent book, Alexander: The Ambiguity of Greatness, by Guy MacLean Rogers, argues that this modern temptation should be avoided. Alexander's tutor was Aristotle (a fact that supplies endless fascination to those who study the relationship between philosophers and monarchs, from Machiavelli to Leo Strauss). And Aristotle, perhaps sharing in the continuing rage and shame at the Persian desecration of the Acropolis in 480 B.C., urged his pupil to treat the peoples of the Persian Empire as coldly as he would plants or animals. The available evidence is that Alexander did not take this advice.

I don't know if I'd go so far as to call it cultural nihilism, but I don't see how this rather silly film will help enlighten anyone about Western Civilization.

ADDITIONAL NOTE: For those wanting another amusing review of the film, Rex Reed has a fun piece in this week's New York Observer. His conclusion?

The actors are awful. Half of them never speak, and then they die. It’s too long, too boring, too expensive and too embarrassing to make any kind of lasting impact beyond the popcorn stand.

When the dust clears, the thighs do all the acting, and Alexander is a waste of three years and $150 million that proves, once again, how ludicrous men with fat, hairy calves look in skirts and sandals.