» Update your details

• Extract
• Synopsis
• Reviews
• Product details
• Interview

• Biography
• More titles by John Darwin

Synopsis

Tamerlane was the last of the 'world conquerors': his armies looted and killed from the shores of the Mediterranean to the frontier of China. Nomad horsemen from the Steppes had been the terror of Europe and Asia for centuries, but with Tamerlane's death in 1405, an epoch of history came to an end. The future belonged to the great dynastic empires - Chinese, Mughal, Iranian and Ottoman - where most of Eurasia's culture and wealth was to be found, and to the oceanic voyagers from Eurasia's 'Far West', just beginning to venture across the dark seas.

After Tamerlane is an immensely important and stimulating work. It takes a fresh look at our global past. Our idea of world history is still dominated by the view from the West: it is Europe's expansion that takes centre-stage. But for much of the six-hundred year span of this book. Asia's great empires seemed much more than a match for the intruders from Europe. It took a revolution in Eurasia to change this balance of power, although never completely. The Chinese empire, against all the odds, has survived to this day. The British empire came and went. The Nazi empire was crushed almost at one. The rise, fall and endurance of empires - and the causes behind them - remain one of the most fascinating puzzles in world history.

Reviews

Critic Review:

'an elegant and brilliant survey of the great empires of the world since the early 15th century.'
The Sunday Times

'Darwin sustains an intricate thesis with enormous panache.'
Independent

'If only this book could find its way into the right hands, it might also serve to make the world a less dangerous place.'
Sunday Telegraph

'You really must read.'
The Sunday Times (Culture)

'Magnificently weighty and original book.'
Daily Telegraph

'A masterpiece of scholarship, stunning in its breadth, originality and vision.'
BBC History Magazine

Interview

Publishing Director Simon Winder on After Tamerlane by John Darwin

Every now and then books are published that change the way we think - Jared Diamond's Collapse, Niall Ferguson's The War of the World and Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat would be three recent, hugely successful examples from Penguin Press.

John Darwin's After Tamerlane: A Global History of Empire has this kind of potential. It is an extraordinarily ambitious and enjoyable attempt to work out why empires rise and fall, starting with the death in the late middle ages of the last great psychopath 'world conqueror', Tamerlane, and coming right up to the present.

It is the story of the whole of Europe and Asia over six centuries and encompasses everything from the Ottomans to the Nazis, the Mughals to the British. It is a book fascinated by technological change, cultural resilience and creative change. While clear about the horrifying things that empires have done, After Tamerlane also forces us to get beyond the usual moral condemnation: through most of history most people have lived in empires of one kind or another and it is more valuable to work out why this has been so rather than simply deplore it. The book ends with a brilliant look at just how enduring many of these empires are, with countries such as Iran and China today remaining as culturally powerful as in their 18th century heydays (and with roughly the same borders), having seen off a Europe that has returned to the relatively small and marginal role it used to have.

I can't recommend this ridiculously thought-provoking, engaging and clever book enough.

Product details

Shipped within 24hrs.
FREE UK Delivery on orders of £25 or over

• Full delivery details

• » View your basket