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Summary
Summary
A powerful account of the life of Tamerlane the Great (1336-1405), the last master nomadic power, one of history's most extreme tyrants, and the subject of Marlowe's famous play. Marozzi travelled in the footsteps of the great Mogul Emperor of Samarkland to write this wonderful combination of history and travelogue.
The name of the last great warlord conjures up images of mystery and romance: medieval warfare on desert plains; the clash of swords on snow-clad mountains; the charge of elephants across the steppes of Asia; the legendary opulence and cruelty of the illiterate, chess-playing nemesis of Asia. He ranks alongside Alexander as one of the world's great conquerors, yet the details of his life are scarcely known in the West.
He was not born to a distinguished family, nor did he find his apprenticeship easy - at one point his mobile army consisted only of himself, his wife, seven companions and four horses - but his dominion grew with astonishing rapidity. In the last two decades of the fourteenth century and the beginning of the fifteenth, he blazed through Asia. Cities were razed to the ground, inhabitants tortured without mercy, sometimes enemies were buried alive - more commonly they were decapitated. On the ruins of Baghdad, Tamerlane had his princes erect a pyramid of 90,000 heads.
During his lifetime he sought to foster a personal myth, exaggerating the difficulties of his youth, laying claim to supernatural powers and a connection to Genghis Khan. This myth was maintained after his death in legend, folklore, poetry, drama and even opera, nowhere more powerfully than in Marlowe's play - he is now as much a literary construct as a historical figure. Justin Marozzi follows in his path and evokes his legacy in telling the tale of this fabulously cruel, magnificent and romantic warrior.
Author Notes
Justin Marozzi is an author who won the UK Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize for his history book Baghdad: City of Peace, City of Blood. The annual $19,600 prize is presented for a distinguished work of fiction, nonfiction or poetry, evoking the spirit of a place.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
By the time of his death in 1405, the Mongol conqueror Tamerlane?a pejorative derivative of the nickname ?Temur the Lame??commanded as much land and fear as any ruler in history. Literally following in the footsteps of Ghengis Khan, he built his empire with one invasion after the next, eventually amassing a kingdom that stretched ?from Moscow to the Mediterranean, from Delhi to Damascus.? Nonetheless, Tamerlane remains relatively unknown in the Western world, taking a historical backseat to Ghengis despite a reign and ruthlessness every bit as remarkable. Faced with such a complex and underreported subject, Marozzi delivers an exceptional account of the emperor?s life, revealing him to be both an extravagantly merciless tyrant and tireless proponent for the cultural and architectural progress in his beloved Samarkand (in modern day Uzbekistan). One peculiar choice, however, is the book?s subtitle, as Tamerlane killed tens of thousands of his fellow Muslims along his so-called ?pilgrimage of destruction,? including a particularly bloody massacre of Baghdad that left 90,000 dead, ?their heads cemented into 120 towers.? The subtitle certainly wasn?t chosen for a lack of nicknames, as Tamerlane?s life produced plenty: ?Lord of the Fortunate Conjunction.? ?Emperor of the Age.? ?Unconquered Lord of the Seven Climes.? ?Scourge of God.? The list goes on, too, leading one to wonder how it is that such a large part of the world hardly recognizes name. (Apr.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Booklist Review
A nomadic mass of destruction, Tamerlane (1336-1405) was just sedentary enough to leave behind, in addition to his signature monuments of piled skulls, the great Islamic architecture of Samarkand. Marozzi is an up-and-coming journalist-travel writer 0 ( South from Barbary: Along the Slave Routes of Libyan Sahara,0 2001) who melds the biography with visits to sites of Tamerlane's battles, atrocities, and buildings. Richly describing central Asia's steppe and desert, Marozzi recounts Tamerlane's initial claim on his due portion of Genghis Khan's empire. Following the warlord's widening conquests, Marozzi sorts through the panegyrics and condemnations of chroniclers of the time, whose dominantly opprobrious opinion of Tamerlane descends for the West via Christopher Marlowe's famous drama Tamburlaine0 (1587) and periodic studies. The previous popular biography ( Tamburlaine the Conqueror, 0 by Hilda Hookham, 1962) 0 is out of print, and Uzbekistan has adopted Tamerlane as its national hero, which further recommends Marozzi's fine performance of evoking the past and present of one of history's most lurid empire builders. --Gilbert Taylor Copyright 2006 Booklist
Choice Review
This biography of Tamerlane was written by a journalist-traveler who followed in his subject's footsteps, rather than by a historian with professional training in researching facts and writing objective history. Marozzi is more interested in turning a good phrase or inserting one of his numerous literary quotations than in presenting his subject in an organized, comprehensive fashion. He has a tendency to jump between topics. Readers not previously familiar with Tamerlane's life and exploits will be hopelessly confused and lost by the end of chapter one. Periodic explanatory footnotes are not numbered consecutively, but indicated by various symbols repeated anew on each page. While the bibliography lists some basic sources, others are noticeably missing. Those wanting an organized, truly historical exposure to Tamerlane's life and times should refer to Beatrice Forbes Manz's The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane (CH, Sep'90, 28-0498) for the modern definitive biography of this intriguing conqueror. No libraries, especially research and college libraries, with a copy of the scholarly Forbes Manz volume need purchase this frustrating and confusing popular account written by a literary journalist. ^BSumming Up: Not recommended. G. G. Guzman Bradley University