An innovative history of the Middle East, seen through the cities which best epitomised it.
Justin Marozzi has spent most of his professional life living and working in the Muslim world, with long assignments in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Syria, Lebanon and Somalia. He is a former Trustee of the Royal Geographical Society and a Senior Research Fellow in Journalism and the Popular Understanding of History at Buckingham University. His previous books include South from Barbary- Along the Slave Routes of the Libyan Sahara (2001), the bestselling Tamerlane- Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World (2004) and The Man Who Invented History- Travels with Herodotus (2008). His last book, Baghdad- City of Peace, City of Blood (2014) won the Royal Society of Literature's Ondaatje Prize and was praised by the judges as 'a truly monumental achievement'.
Marozzi is an outstanding guide to the urban centres he expounds
on, partly because of his deep understanding and love for the
peoples and places he writes about. . . . The succession of
delightful pen portraits of rulers, as well as writers, artists and
scholars, makes for a riveting read. This is a fine book that helps
recentre our understanding of the past by focusing on cities about
which little is known in Europe, in spite of their enduring
importance and the role they have played in history. It is a
compelling and personal account by an author who knows, cares and
has thought deeply about his subject matter. It is a new Hudud
al-Alam, the famous 10th-century Persian geography book, for the
21st century - informing, revealing and delighting in some of the
parts of the world that everyone should know about.
*The Sunday Times*
This impressively clever, careful, and often beautiful book is the
best sort of journey. . . Our guide is never predictable,
continually fascinating, and his elegant writing makes for a very
comfortable ride.
*The Spectator*
Islamic Empires is a seemingly boundless trove of intellectual,
architectural, and actual treasures ... Marozzi writes colourful,
narrative history of the finest kind: pacey, crimson, and with all
the references left until the end.
*Geographical Magazine*
Deeply engaging and fascinating
*The Sunday Telegraph*
It is refreshing to read a book on Islam by someone who combines
profound erudition with emotional intelligence and empathy. . . . A
continuously readable narrative . . . For each of the cities
included there is a well-rounded chapter, with an illuminating
history, a perceptive analysis of personalities and politics, and a
fair-minded assessment of its intellectual, artistic and
architectural achievements.
*The Financial Times*
The approach is perfect [and] the balance between telling detail
and telling story is spot on. With its fine drawing and mass of
minute detail, reading the book is more like poring over the framed
miniatures in a manuscript: here a Moghul lolls by a pool, there a
Timurid rampages across the page. The prose, too, is beautifully
paced, sprightly but never tiring. And the city portraits build up
into a panorama of Islamic civilisation as full as any history, and
far more entertaining.
*The Evening Standard*
Superbly crafted ... Marozzi knows the ground intimately [and] has
constructed a brilliant narrative by stringing together a necklace
of tales from 15 extraordinary cities.
*History Today*
Marozzi's expertly crafted narrative ... captures the rich, varied
and often complex nature of Islamic civilization by offering
glimpses of not just its leaders and their institutions, but also
its cultural shifts through history,
*Arab News*
A rich mix of historical detail, colourful description and
first-hand insights. Marozzi's style mixes historical insight with
the descriptive flow of a seasoned traveller.
*The National*
Magnificence and ruination go hand in hand in this vivid tale.
*The Times*
In telling the stories of 15 of the great Islamic cities, from
Mecca in the seventh century via Samarkand in the 14th to Doha in
the 21st, [Marozzi] ... vividly recounts the dynasties that made
them centres of art, commerce, science and spirituality.
*New Statesman*
This is a complex yet accessible book that manages, in a gentle
way, to address the prejudiced misconceptions of our world.
*The Times Books of the Year*
Justin Marozzi has ridden camels across the Sahara, written
illuminating accounts of Herodotus, Tamerlane and Baghdad and
advised the governments of Somalia, Libya and Iraq. In Islamic
Empires, comprising 15 pocket portraits of cities of the
Muslimworld at a crunch point in their history, he gives us a
vivid, candid and entertaining immersion into a complex subject
*Country Life Books of the Year*
Marozzi is an accomplished and ambitious writer... Islamic Empires
[is] a sweeping, vibrant and often irrepressible account of the
cities most emblematic of Islam... the charm of this book lies in
the fact that it is so obviously the adult sublimation of a boyhood
passion for the lands and history of Islam... Like an erudite
magpie, he gathers material from every available source-primary
texts, both religious and historical, as well as a profusion of
secondary ones-and weaves it all together with dexterity.
*Wall Street Journal*
Islamic Empires encompasses a breathtaking panorama of human,
religious, military and architectural activity and achievement, as
well as destruction and decline...The author's achievement is to
mix travel writing, history and journalism, and present it in prose
that is at once flowing, engaging, enlightening and incisive. His
ability to transport us on a magic carpet from the depths of the
7th century to the present day and everywhere in between, and to
capture key moments and shifts in culture and politics, threatens
to render other more conventional approaches obsolete.
*Catholic Herald*
It is refreshing to read a book on Islam by someone who combines
profound erudition with emotional intelligence and empathy. ... His
writing style is lively, limpid and graceful and it enables him to
turn a vast amount of material into a continuously readable
narrative.
*Financial Times Weekend*
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