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After Tamerlane: The Global History of Empire Since 1405 Hardcover – February 5, 2008

by John Darwin (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 300 ratings
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A Rise and Fall of the Great Powers for the post–Cold War era―a brilliantly written, sweeping new history of how empires have ebbed and flowed over the past six centuries.

The death of the great Tatar emperor Tamerlane in 1405, writes historian John Darwin, was a turning point in world history. Never again would a single warlord, raiding across the steppes, be able to unite Eurasia under his rule. After Tamerlane, a series of huge, stable empires were founded and consolidated― Chinese, Mughal, Persian, and Ottoman―realms of such grandeur, sophistication, and dynamism that they outclassed the fragmentary, quarrelsome nations of Europe in every respect. The nineteenth century saw these empires fall vulnerable to European conquest, creating an age of anarchy and exploitation, but this had largely ended by the twenty-first century, with new Chinese and Indian super-states and successful independent states in Turkey and Iran.

This elegantly written, magisterial account challenges the conventional narrative of the "Rise of the West," showing that European ascendancy was neither foreordained nor a linear process. Indeed, it is likely to be a transitory phase. After Tamerlane is a vivid, bold, and innovative history of how empires rise and fall, from one of Britain's leading scholars. It will take its place beside other provocative works of "large history," from Paul Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers to David Landes's The Wealth and Poverty of Nations or Niall Ferguson's Empire.

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  1. Print length
    592 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Bloomsbury Press
  4. Publication date
    February 5, 2008
  5. Dimensions
    6.79 x 1.85 x 9.1 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1596913932
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1596913936
  8. See all details
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4.3 out of 5 stars
300 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the book an insightful exploration of global history. They describe it as a great read and interesting for readers like Weber, Immanuel Wallerstein, or Michael Mann. Opinions differ on the writing style - some find it comprehensive and well-written, while others criticize complicated sentence structures and irrelevant statements.

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History valueReadabilityWriting style
16 customers mention "History value"13 positive3 negative

Customers appreciate the book's history value. They find it a thoughtful exploration of the period and a must-have for history collections. The book takes readers to the past, present, and future of global empires. While some find the writing dense and complicated, others describe it as an interesting and worthwhile read that will make you think and see connections.

"...I found this book to be interesting and easy to read, not overly "academic" in its writing style...." Read more

"...He is one of the best historian-writers I have come across in decades of reading in the field...." Read more

"...Otherwise, an interesting and worthwhile read." Read more

"...After Tamerlane, which is an outstanding book that will make you think and see connections...." Read more

10 customers mention "Readability"10 positive0 negative

Customers find the book engaging and interesting. They say it's good for readers like Weber, Wallerstein, or Mann. The book is important for understanding empires' history.

"...Either way, I really enjoyed the book and would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a good overview of the time period it covers." Read more

"...Otherwise, an interesting and worthwhile read." Read more

"...above are my thoughts after reading After Tamerlane, which is an outstanding book that will make you think and see connections...." Read more

"...Good for readers who like Weber, Immanuel Wallerstein, or Michael Mann." Read more

12 customers mention "Writing style"8 positive4 negative

Customers have different views on the writing style. Some find it comprehensive, clear, and easy to read, with logical arguments. Others find it poorly written with complicated sentence structures and dense information that makes it hard to understand.

"...I found this book to be interesting and easy to read, not overly "academic" in its writing style...." Read more

"Cumbersome but interesting reading...." Read more

"...and grace while consistently giving the reader a thoroughly organized line of thought that is enhanced by a rich mass of detail, data, and anecdotes...." Read more

"...The value of the work lies in the analysis that is truly world spanning. But this is not a book a casual reader will enjoy...." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • greene_man
    5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating look at world empires over six centuries
    Reviewed in the United States on February 11, 2024
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    "The history of the world, it is tempting to say, is an imperial history, a history of empires."
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  • AndrewGillis
    4.0 out of 5 stars Really Interesting Book
    Reviewed in the United States on October 12, 2011
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    I have a general interest in world history and I was looking for an overview of the development of modern civilizations. I found this book to be interesting and easy to read, not overly "academic" in its writing style. I read it at the same time as A Splendid Exchange and thought that they both complemented each other well. I didn't notice any strong bias or "ax grinding" in the writing, but perhaps that's because I haven't done a ton of historical reading. Either way, I really enjoyed the book and would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a good overview of the time period it covers.
    7 people found this helpful
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  • Edgar Mcgarvey
    5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful prose infected with post-modern bias
    Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2013
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    Professor Darwin has one hell of a mind. He writes with subtlety and grace while consistently giving the reader a thoroughly organized line of thought that is enhanced by a rich mass of detail, data, and anecdotes. He is one of the best historian-writers I have come across in decades of reading in the field. I found my mind skipping lightly from page to page and from chapter to chapter. Pure joy for any serious reader.

    I was less happy about the way he structured his analysis and presented his conclusions. Making sense of six centuries worth of data covering much of the Eurasian heartland would probably take a dozen volumes of narrative history and there would still be social historians complaining that their people had been left out. And deciding to go with "Imperialism since 1400" gives him a story he can tell in one volume. Who won and who lost has been pretty much the heart of the human drama since the Greeks invented history.
    Most of history's winners are now deemed by the post-Vietnam academic mainstream to be the villains behind everything bad that has happened, particularly since the Soviet Union expired (with neither whimper nor bang) in 1989. Millions of lost academic sheep were left without, like the emperor, naked and feeling foolish. Perhaps the utopias promised by Rousseau, Marx, and Lenin would have reversed the west-east tide with better management from the East. Perhaps not. And perhaps all that romantic theorizing was in some part responsible for the disastrous misrule of Stalin, Mao, the Khmer Rouge, and the North Korean oligarchy. Sadly, much of academe and the mass media seem in thrall to post-modern theories of history that hold that the Enlightenment was the first false step taken by the West.
    To my mind, Darwin seems to believe that Western imperialism could do no right and those who lost out to it could do no wrong . With the exception of Japanese exploitation of China, aggressions by non-western imperialists from Tamerlane to Lenin are pretty much treated as "that's the way people like that do things". The Mughal Empire in India is one example. Mongolian domination of Han China is another.
    Also, he doesn't appear to give much thought to the way western imperial powers disposed of their possessions after the Second World War. For example, one wonders if there are lessons to be learned by contrasting the way the U.K. eased out of their empire with the stubborn determination by the French to hang on to their possessions in North Africa and Indo-China and all that went with it. And while he rightly describes the slave trade to the west as a barbarous holocaust, he barely mentions the slave trade that sent just as many Africans north to Arab countries as were sent west to the Americas. He mentions enslaved European children brainwashed into Janissary servitude as the chief weapon and chief problem of the Ottoman sultans but with little moral reflection.
    By the end of the book Darwin seems to be going into overdrive as he tries to get his narrative up to speed with post-modern (read Marx lives) interpretations of history. He considers the popularity of Western films and consumer lifestyles now part of the imperialist tide. Stuff that was getting old in the 80's. A good case can be made for the fact American politicians did the world a huge service by rejecting nativist isolationism and opting instead to shoulder the burdens of world leadership.

    I suppose it all comes down to perspective. Was there a monolithic colonialist West or were there qualitative differences between the way the various European powers expanded? Isn't it entirely possible that the different developmental levels of North and South America is related to the way Britain and Spain themselves developed? Would the world be a better place if Shakespeare, Locke, Hume, Newton, Darwin, Blackstone, Mill, Wilberforce, and the hundreds of Parliamentary workhorses of representative government not been able to do their work?
    By all means read this book. Darwin has more right to offer opinions than I have to offer criticisms. He did, after all, do all the work of writing it. But also consider reading Francis Fukuyama's, "The Origins of Political Order" for a more measured analysis of the way things happen in the real world. First volume takes us to the French Revolution and the second, out not long ago, finishes his analysis.

    Looking for a little optimism? Try Steven Pinker's, "The Better Angel's of Our Nature". He writes as least as well as Darwin, displays a lighter touch at times, and lays out literally dozens of empirical studies that collectively suggest that humankind has reached a plateau of progress and that we might even have reason to hope for better days ahead. Need I add, in spite of all those Western sins.
    26 people found this helpful
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  • Michael Popolino
    3.0 out of 5 stars Another Well-written Work Marred by PC
    Reviewed in the United States on October 11, 2009
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    It's the usual PC ideology when John Darwin dares not use the words "orient" or "oriental" when referring to Asia, but has no problem in referring to Europe as the "occident" and the "occidentals" several times in his book. I have no issue at all in avoiding the use of "orient" if that's what most historians and their readers prefer. But it then becomes pure hypocrisy to retain the term "occident". (Then again, why should I be suprised by these double-standards at this point in time.) Otherwise, an interesting and worthwhile read.
    7 people found this helpful
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  • Keith Hansen
    5.0 out of 5 stars Trade and Empire Building are two intrinsic aspects to human organization
    Reviewed in the United States on September 17, 2018
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    Trade and Empire Building are two intrinsic aspects to human organization. They are both absolutely unavoidable, are completely unpredicable, and are neither good nor bad inherently. They are what we as humans require at a minimum for human civilization to be anything other than a mass of self-sufficient individuals, which is ultimately an impossibility.

    States are nothing more than embryonic empires currently hemmed in by more powerful neighbors or geographical and economic constraints. Just as life dies when growth ends or corporations fail when profit shrinks, so do empires. Again - this is neither good nor bad - it is the essence of existence. Yet growth can happen too quickly, corporations can get too greedy, and unexpected geopolitical or technical change can shock the system in unexpected ways, often quite suddenly. We live in an Hegelian world, where every ideology, every religion, every culture, every empire is challenged by an opposing kind. Conflict is invevitable but a necessary prerequisite for resolution; only to resume in a new conflict. To what ultimate end however? To a one-world government of sorts? Perhaps but still - unpredicable - because there will be factors as of yet nobody can predict and even a one-world government/empire will face conflict from within.

    Every empire that has ever existed is still with us today in some vestigial form; they never truly disappear and in some ways recur again but in unexpected places and in unexpected forms. The power of the Roman Empire still exists but has been incarnated in the United States, which even names its legislative body after the Senate and uses the very same eagle as its symbol; many other similarities exist. One can find to this day some incarnated form of the old Tsarist Russia, Ottoman, Persian, British, and Spanish empires, among others. Communist China today has roughly the same borders it had under the Qing dynasty, which formed it and kept it together under the horrors of civil war and foreign bullying from Britian. Empires lose cohesion and collapse but they never truly disappear. History is not about the past but about the present for all that was is with us still and all that will be is here already in some embryonic form.

    The above are my thoughts after reading After Tamerlane, which is an outstanding book that will make you think and see connections. Books that focus on single eras, events, or regions can easily lose sight of the forest in which all things are ultimately connected and in which history is a series of patterns that repeat themselves endlessly, though always in some unique form, and typically in unexpected ways.

    Author John Darwin refers to Tamerlane as the last of the great attempts to unifiy all of "Eurasia" under one empire. We may never see another Steppe Horde attempt to subjugate through the sword a large swathe of territory but without doubt we will see more attempts at empire. Though it may not be via the sword it could be by the purse or it could be via AI or some form of technological subjugation. We seem not far from this already.

    There are essentially 2 predominant views of the period of European colonialism in Asia and Africa from roughly 1757 (after the Battle of Plassey) to 1961 (the Indian Annexation of Goa). The first is essentially pessimistic and increasingly views the Europeans as perpetrating evil or having some form of moral failing. The second is optimistic and sees the colonialism as a net positive that brought about accelarated progress, excesses and shortcomings notwithstanding.

    Should conditions have been otherwise, it could have been the Chinese or some other regional power or culture that was actually doing the colonizing, and in any case eventually it may very well be (for history is still happening) that some day the tables are completely reversed. Did not Muslims attempt to conquer much of the world? Did not Asian Mongols?
    Did not the Japanese carve out a large Pacific empire? Therefore, the idea that Europeans are somehow morally inferior or intrinsically more imperialistic is not based on sufficient evidence and in fact can be countered by examples of the opposite. It is not European nature that is the problem but human nature and it is the nature of power that it seeks more power.

    The idea of progress itself is debateable. Is there truly progress if human nature does not change? Does it really matter that we can light our streets, air condition our homes, refrigerate our food, and hold in the palm of our hands more knowledge than entire libraries yet live in perpetual fear of being killed by our leaders, or worse - enslaved?
    17 people found this helpful
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  • Reptilian Lord
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Overview of Global History
    Reviewed in Canada on April 17, 2019
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    Excellent book. Darwin presented a fascinating rebuttal of Eurocentric history and the notion of the innate supremacy of the West and it's rise as an inevitable fact of history. His bibliography and further reading section are fantastic and provide a plethora of diverse sources. He does move at a fast pace and cannot account for details and nuances at play in the various epochs, but he does nail the general mood and ideas of these historical periods and their impacts. My only complaint is that his historical approach is fairly Whiggish with it's focus on economic and material forces and a brushing aside of intellectual and philosophical movements, but nonetheless an excellent work.
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    Reptilian Lord
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Overview of Global History
    Reviewed in Canada on April 17, 2019
    Excellent book. Darwin presented a fascinating rebuttal of Eurocentric history and the notion of the innate supremacy of the West and it's rise as an inevitable fact of history. His bibliography and further reading section are fantastic and provide a plethora of diverse sources. He does move at a fast pace and cannot account for details and nuances at play in the various epochs, but he does nail the general mood and ideas of these historical periods and their impacts. My only complaint is that his historical approach is fairly Whiggish with it's focus on economic and material forces and a brushing aside of intellectual and philosophical movements, but nonetheless an excellent work.
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  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book
    Reviewed in Germany on November 13, 2017
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    Much like “Guns, Germs and Steel” but infinitely better written and without the repetiveness. A great read for any history fan
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  • deshpande, cv
    5.0 out of 5 stars ... to sustain the attention of a general uninitiated reader like me.
    Reviewed in India on February 17, 2018
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    A serious book on history with a revolutionary paradigm but able to sustain the attention of a general uninitiated reader like me.
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  • Charlotte Clinton-Welbeck
    5.0 out of 5 stars "After Tamerlane" a very detailed, fantastically researched piece of work.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 31, 2012
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    As I'm studying for a BA Hons History degree this book is suggested background reading. I, and many of my fellow students, have found this to be a marvellous book for detailing the growth of many empires. It is also an extremely interesting book for anyone who just wants to understand the many different things that have affected nations and peoples, to bring them to where they are today. As it is so detailed it can be hard going at times but it is a very fine, fantastically researched book. It is a "must" for any historian of empire, but it's also suitable for anyone who is just interested in reading history for enjoyment, as long as they are ready for such a full and heavy bombardment of facts and detail.
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  • Nishant
    4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
    Reviewed in India on June 14, 2017
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    Book came dirty with blackish marks. Nevertheless a good read
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