Reviews for The Great World War, 1914-45

The average rating for The Great World War, 1914-45 based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-09-03 00:00:00 Karin Mccleery I'd always heard of Tamerlane, but never knew who the heck he was, other than some sort of warrior leader from the Middle Ages. I even thought he was European; maybe French or English. How wrong was I??? Turns out that this guy was the biggest world conqueror ever, other than perhaps Genghis Khan. Unlike Genghis, who was an animist, Tamerlane was Muslim, and called himself the "Sword of Islam," although probably the vast majority of his victims were also Muslim. He started as a minor warlord in what is now Uzbekistan, but gradually increasing the reach of his domain until he was the acknowledged emperor of the middle east, eastern Europe, north Africa, and much of southern Asia (including India). The "capital" of his empire was Samarkand. He died an old man, en route to take on China as his next conquest. Also fascinating, his name wasn't really Tamerlane (an anglicization). He was really Temur the Lame, and he was known that way because of an injury at an early age that left him with a bum leg, limping, and unable to walk much. But when you're the leader of an unstoppable horse cavalry, you don't have to do much walking. A fascinating although brutal imperialist, to be sure. The whole time I read this I had visions of someone like Conan the Barbarian serving in Temur's vast army. One of the best things about this book was that it added significantly to my knowledge of Muslim military power during the Middle Ages. By the time of Temur, the Ottomans had conquered swaths of the middle east and southern Europe, much to the consternation of the Catholic & Orthodox church officials who thought they ran those regions. Then enter Temur, who invades, loots, burns, & kills almost everyone in many of the remaining Christian settlements & cities in the region before also booting the Ottomans out of many of their conquered territories. Although Temur built (or rebuilt) much great architecture (little of which survives today), his most well-known constructions were pyramids of skulls, sometimes more than 100 feet high. He seldom had to worry about the vanquished seeking revenge. My "History of Western Civ" college classes didn't talk much about Islam or the powerful Muslims of that era. Time to catch up on that topic now!

Review # 2 was written on 2016-12-29 00:00:00 Thomas Price Temur-i-Leng, aka Tamerlane, doubtlessly led a fascinating - and bloodsoaked - life. He conquered a vast empire by clever military tactics, a pragmatic approach to religion (using whichever religious tradition served him best at any given moment) and an absolute ruthlessness and utter lack of mercy. I would have loved to read a book devoted to a factual account of his life, with in-depth analysis of what it was that enabled a man of such humble beginnings to rise to absolute power in Central Asia. ... This book is not it. This book is Justin Marozzi's breathless fan-letter to Temur. Marozzi has an irritating tendency towards self-insertion, breaking off the interesting narrative of Temur's ongoing military conquests with abrupt and far too long sections about his own travels in the region in modern times. These travelogue-interludes are equal parts pompous navel-gazing and scathing criticisms of the exploits of the Soviet union, which feel desperately out of place. While there is value to attempting to place historical events in context, analysing why they happened and what they ultimately led to, Marozzi's bitterness feel less like an attempt to convey to the reader the consequences of Temur's empire-building and the subsequent unrest in the region, and more like his way of injecting some melodrama in the narrative. The best thing I can say about this book is that it makes me want to read more about Temur - by someone who isn't Marozzi.