Baghdad

A many-layered history of one of the world's truly great cities, covering both its spectacular golden ages and its terrible disasters.

For much of its extraordinary life, Baghdad, known for centuries as the “City of Peace,” has been one of the most violent cities on earth. When U.S. troops entered in 2003, they became the latest participants in a turbulent history stretching back to the city’s founding in 762. For the next five hundred years Baghdad was the seat of the Abbasid Empire, a marvel of glittering palaces, magnificent mosques, Islamic colleges, and teeming markets watered by the Tigris.

Baghdad has been, too a city of terrible hardships. It has been ruled by brutal strongmen, from capricious caliphs to Saddam Hussein, and it has endured violent occupations at the hands of those who conquered it, from the Mongol Hulagu, grandson of Genghis Khan, to Tamerlane, known as the “Scourge of God.”

In this vivid new history of Baghdad—the first published in English in nearly a century—Justin Marozzi brings to life its whole tumultuous history, charting a captivating course through thirteen centuries of splendor and destruction.

Justin Marozzi is a former Financial Times and Economist foreign correspondent. He has spent much of the past decade living and working in Iraq. His previous books include the highly acclaimed Tamerlane and The Way of Herodotus. He lives in London.