A history of two 1857 sieges in which Indians violently revolted against British colonials, featuring accounts from people who lived through them.Following the May 1857 uprising by sepoys in Meerut and Delhi, the whole future of the British Raj was in the balance. Nowhere was this better demonstrated than at Lucknow and Cawnpore. At the latter, a garrison of 240 with 375 British women and children battled to survive a siege by 3,000 mutineers led by Nana Sahib. Unim...

The Peninsular Campaign was conducted over terrain ranging from the sun scorched plains of Andalusia to the picturesque snow covered passes of the Pyrenees. Drawing on the experiences and observations of fifty-six officers and men who fought during the years 1808 to 1814, The Peninsula Years is a thrilling and fast moving narrative of the bloody campaigns in the Iberian Peninsula, as well as showing insight into the everyday hardships common to the ordinary British redcoat. The contrary na...

The author relies to a great extent on contemporary accounts of a large number of British men—and women—who were unwittingly caught up in this appalling war. As well as surviving the efforts of their determined enemy, the Russians, they had to overcome the harshest weather, rampant disease and woefully inadequate administrative support. As revealed to a shocked nation by the first war reporters, medical care was largely non-existent and wounded faced the trauma of being left for days witho...

Providing a modern English translation of a key selection of Ibn Fadl Allah al-`Umarī’s Masālik al-absār, this book offers a rich description of Egypt and Syria under the Mamluks in the first half of the fourteenth-century A.D. It provides a fascinating snapshot of the physical and administrative geography of this crucial region as well as insights into its society and the organization and functioning of the Mamluk state.

Ibn al-Athir, who died in the 13th century, is one of the most important historians of Islam. His major chronicle, the Kamil fi'l-Ta'rikh, is one of the greatest achievements of Muslim historiography for the range and comprehensiveness of the sources it assembled and for its narrative, covering the whole sweep of Islamic history up to his own lifetime. This volume of D.S. Richards' translation covers the early years of conquest and the period of the 'great sultanate'. With its cop...

European and Arab versions of the Crusades have little in common. For Arabs, the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were years of strenuous efforts to repel a brutal and destructive invasion by barbarian hordes. Under Saladin, an unstoppable Muslim army inspired by prophets and poets finally succeeded in destroying the most powerful Crusader kingdoms. The memory of this greatest and most enduring victory ever won by a non-European society against the West still lives in the minds of millions...

This biography of the 12th century Islamic military leader provides a fascinating view of the Crusades and the Medieval Muslim world.Saladin was a Kurdish military leader who led the fight against the Crusades and rose to become first Sultan of Egypt and Syria. He united warring Muslim lands, reconquered the bulk of Crusader states and faced King Richard I of England in one of the most famous confrontations in medieval warfare. His extraordinary character and career...

The Leadership of Muhammad is a very personal study of the life-story and leadership skills of the Prophet. John Adair served with a Bedouin regiment in the Arab Legion and this story is full of fascinating detail of desert life and Bedouin beliefs. A business book that crosses boundaries it highlights the key leadership skills displayed by Muhammad and allows you to share in his wisdom. John Adair weaves the story of Muhammad's life together with aspects of Bedouin culture and ancient pro...

From a master historian, the definitive account of history's first terroristsAn offshoot of the Ismaili Shi'ite sect of Islam, the Assassins were the first group to make systematic use of murder as a political weapon. Established in Iran and Syria in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, they aimed to overthrow the existing Sunni order in Islam and replace it with their own. They terrorized their foes with a series of dramatic murders of Islamic leaders, as well as o...

A close look at the early life, military experiences and key battlefield exploits of Al-Malik al-Nasir Yusuf Ibn Najm al-Din Ayyub Ibn Shahdi Abu'l-Muzaffar Salah al-Din, broadly regarded as the greatest hero of the Crusades, even in Europe.Most chroniclers present him as a man of outstanding virtue, courage and political skill. More recently, however, efforts have been made to portray Saladin as an ambitious, ruthless and even devious politician, and as a less bri...

Mention of Iran may bring to mind images of turbaned Mullahs and nuclear weapons. On the other hand Persia may provoke other images; of Persian Gardens, romantic poetry or the beautiful wives of the last Pahlavi Shah.But this in no way does justice to the people of Iran, or its rich and complex history. For much of the ancient period Iranian empires ruled vast areas from Afghanistan in the East to Egypt in the West. Starting around 600 BCE with the Medes and ending with the modern ...

Over thirteen centuries, Baghdad has enjoyed both cultural and commercial pre-eminence, boasting artistic and intellectual sophistication and an economy once the envy of the world. It was here, in the time of the Caliphs, that the Thousand and One Nights were set. Yet it has also been a city of great hardships, beset by epidemics, famines, floods, and numerous foreign invasions which have brought terrible bloodshed. This is the history of its storytellers and its tyrants, of its philosophe...