WAR OF THE THREE GODS

Sub-titled 'Romans, Persians and the Rise of Islam', and combining sources from Greek, Latin, Syriac, Arabic, Armenian and Iranian accounts, this is a superb historical overview. The book is a military history of the Near and Middle East in the 7th century, with its focus on the reign of the Eastern Roman Emperor Heraclius (AD 610-641). The Eastern Roman Empire was brought to the very brink of extinction by the Sassanid Persians before Heraclius managed to inflict a crushing defeat on them with a desperate, final gambit. His conquest was short lived however, for the newly converted adherents of Islam burst upon the region, administering the coup de grace to Sassanid power and laying siege to Constantinople itself to usher in a new era. Crawford skilfully narrates the three-way struggle between the Christian Roman, Zoroastiran Persian, and Islamic Arab empires, a period of conflict peopled with fascinating characters including Heraclius, Khusro II and the Prophet Muhammad himself. Many of the epic battles of the period - Nineveh, Yarmuk, Qadisiyyah and Nahavand - and sieges such as those of Jerusalem and Constantinople are described with strategies and tactics of the different armies. Superb discussion and analysis with 44 maps prove how the entire world order was changed, most of the Mediterranean occupied, Rome reduced and North Africa preparing to invade Spain. A superb broad view of the 7th century. 256pp, eight pages of colour plates. Softback.