| A
powerful account of the life of Tamerlane the Great (1336-1405),
the last great Mongol conqueror of Central Asia, ruler of
a vast empire, and one of history's most brutal tyrants
Tamerlane, aka
Temur — the Mongol successor to Genghis Khan —
ranks with Alexander the Great as one of the world's great
conquerors, yet the details of his life are scarcely known
in the West. Born in obscurity and poverty, he rose to become
a fierce tribal leader, and with that his dominion and power
grew with astonishing speed. He blazed through Asia, razing
cities to the ground. He tortured conquered inhabitants without
mercy, sometimes ordering them buried alive, at other times
decapitating them. Over the ruins of conquered Baghdad, Tamerlane
had his soldiers erect a pyramid of 90,000 enemy heads. As
he and his armies swept through Central Asia, sacking, and
then rebuilding cities, Tamerlane gradually imposed an iron
rule and a refined culture over a vast territory-from the
steppes of Asia to the Syrian coastline.
Justin Marozzi
traveled in the footsteps of this fearsome emperor of Samarkand
(modern-day Uzbekistan) to write this book, which is part
history, part travelogue. He carefully follows the path of
this infamous and enigmatic conqueror, recounting the history
and the story of this cruel, cultivated, and indomitable warrior.
Justin Marozzi, a journalist, has traveled
extensively throughout the Muslim world. Recently he has been
on assignment in Iraq. He is the author of South from
Barbary.
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