Tamerlane, the Ottomans, the Mughals, the Manchus, the British, the Soviets, the Japanese and the Nazis.

All built empires they hoped would last forever: all were destined to fail. But, as John Darwin shows in his magnificent book, their empire building created the world we know today.

From the death of Tamerlane in 1405, last of the ‘world conquerors’, to the rise and fall of European empires, and from America’s growing colonial presence to the resurgence of India and China as global economic powers, After Tamerlane provides a wonderfully intriguing perspective on the past, present and future of empires.

Prizes

Winner of Wolfson Literary Award for History 2008

Undoubtedly a great work, a book that goes truly global in chronicling the history of one of our abiding concerns: the pull and limitations of absolute power. It forces the reader to rethink commonly held assumptions about our collective past. For that alone, it should be read. --Vikram Johri, St. Petersburg Times

Nicely balanced between sweeping overview and illuminating detail, this lucid survey complicates and deepens our understanding of modern world history. --Publishers Weekly

'In this marvellously illuminating book, John Darwin accepts much but not all of the revisionist analysis. With an awesome grasp of global history, he demonstrates that the continental peninsula of Europe was peripheral for most of the time since the 14th-century conquests of Tamerlane...Darwin sustains an intricate thesis with enormous panache.' --Piers Brendon, The Independent, 4 May 2007

'An astonishingly comprehensive, arrestingly fresh and vivid history of the forces that underlie the world we live in today, After Tamerlane sets aside ideologies in which European power - sometimes seen as liberating and at others as diabolically oppressive - is the driving force of modern development...After reading this masterpiece of historical writing, one thing is clear. The world has not seen the last empire.' --John Gray, Literary Review, April 2007

'A work of massive erudition, After Tamerlane overturns smug Eurocentric teleologies to present a compelling new perspective on international history. Though the subject of empire stirs partisan passions these days, Darwin exudes fairmindedness...Big topics demand big treatments, yet few are brave or knowledgeable enough to hazard them. Darwinhas provided an ambitious, monumental and convincing reminder that empires are the rule, not the exception, in world history.' --Maya Jasanoff, Guardian, 12 May 2007

'A wonderful and imaginative addition to the select library of books on world history that one really wants to possess, and dip into, for ever...It is rather wonderful to doff one's hat to a historian who can range across time and space, giving the reader continual cause for pause, in the way that Darwin has done.' --Paul Kennedy, Sunday Times
Darwin gives us world history on the grand scale, equipping his readers with the knowledge and insights to make their own assessment of what is coming next. If only his book could find its way into the right hands, it might also serve to make the world a less dangerous place.' --Tim Blanning, Sunday Telegraph

Elegant and brilliant....wonderful and imaginative...a deeply significant book. - Sunday Times (UK )

Undoubtedly a great work, a book that goes truly global in chronicling the history of one of our abiding concerns: the pull and limitations of absolute power. - St. Petersburg Times

Elegant and brilliant....wonderful and imaginative...a deeply significant book. -- Sunday Times (UK )

Undoubtedly a great work, a book that goes truly global in chronicling the history of one of our abiding concerns: the pull and limitations of absolute power. -- St. Petersburg Times

John Darwin is a University Lecturer and a Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford. He is the author of Britain and Decolonization, The End of the British Empire and Britain, Egypt and the Middle East.