[Nesacat]

I just finished Justin Marozzi's Tamerlane. I've always been fascinated by the man, even by his name. And this book is particularly well-written. A sweeping, historical saga and puuls the reader right into the world of the Tamerlane and the city of Samarkhand.

Beginning:
At around 10 o'clock on the morning of 28 July 1402, from a patch of raised ground high above the valley, the elderly emperor surveyed his army. It was a vast body of men, spreading over Chibukabad plain, north-east of Ankara, like a dark and terrible stain. Through the glinting sunlight the ordered lines of mounted archers stretched before him until they were lost in the shimmering blaze, each man waiting for the signal to join battle. There were two hundred thousand professional soldiers drawn from the farthest reaches of his empire, from Armenia to Afhganistan, Samarkhand to Siberia. Their confidence was high, their discipline forged in the fire of many battles. They had never known defeat.

Ending:
Temur's burial place was a simple slab of carved stone engraved with Koranic inscriptions. After the pomp and colour of the mausoleum above, the drab, dark chamber was a sombre sight. This was the grave of the man who had blazed across Asia like a comet across the heavens. For a few years his descendants had watched over the glowing embers falling through the sky until the Temurid empire and dynasty had crashed to earth, extinguished altogether. In the West Temur has been but forgotten. Those who know his name perhaps remember the fire and brimstone of Marlowe's play bout a tyrant who styled himself 'the Scourge and Wrath of God/The only fear and terror of the world.' But to all but a few, the greatest Islamic empire-builder in history, the man who joined Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan in the trio of the world's greatest conquerors, remains little more than that: a name. The city he had built so brilliantly and decorated so lovingly, once the envy of the world, lies in a neglected southern outpost of the old Soviet empire.