The Mongol Storm: Making and Breaking Empires in the Medieval Near East

Nicholas Morton
Paperback
9781399803564

The Mongol Storm tells the story of the Mongols and the empires they conquered.

Drawing on years of deep archival research, historian Nicholas Morton traces the rise of the Mongols in the 13th century through their rapid invasions of eight different Middle Eastern societies. As Mongol armies advanced upon the Middle East, Morton shows, longstanding powers such as the Khwarazmian Empire, the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and the Abbasid Caliphate collapsed, while waves of refugees broke across borders and upset the region's delicate religious and social hierarchies. Amidst the chaos arose aggressive new empires including the Mamluks and the Ottomans, who would ultimately challenge the Mongol Empire's authority and dominate the Middle East for centuries.

Even as the Mongols' power declined, the diplomatic and economic ties their conquests had established between once-disparate societies endured, and they left a much more connected Eurasia in their wake, permanently reconfiguring the balance of medieval world power.

The Mongol Storm is an epic account of violent conflict unfolding against the vibrant backdrop of the Seljuk Turks' magnificent garden palaces, mighty Crusader fortresses, Egyptian pyramids, Damascus' sprawling markets, and the vast Mongol wagon cities. Vividly written and vast in scope, it completely revises our understanding of the Mongols and the world of the Middle Ages.