Review Baghdad, City of Peace, City of Blood, A History In Thirteen Centuries

Marozzi, Justin, Baghdad, City of Peace, City of Blood, A History In Thirteen Centuries, Boston: da Capo Press, 2014

 

Justin Marozzi’s Baghdad, City of Peace, City of Blood, A History In Thirteen Centuries as the title suggests is a tale about Baghdad from ancient times to the present. Half of the book is on the Abbasid Dynasty which made Baghdad its capitol and is considered the golden age of the city. It is not a scholarly book and Marozzi has a real flair for writing which makes it an easy read. His thesis is in the title as well as he discusses the highs and lows of Baghdad.

 

Marozzi deals with each time period in the same way going over the history and then touching on the cultural events. During the Abbasid Dynasty for instance, the famed Round City of Baghdad was built in the 8^th Century to be the capitol of the empire. He discusses how the city expanded, the class differences, the monuments built, the prominent women in the Abbasid court, the poets, music, medicine, math, astronomy and even food where there were cooking competitions sometimes sponsored by the Caliphs where two chefs would face off to see who could produce the best cuisine. It’s meant to give a well rounded story about the city. You don’t just get learn about the ruling caliphs but what accomplishments and advances were made as well. That’s why Baghdad was called the City of Peace.

 

The flipside of that were the periods of conflict. Three of the most famous were when Baghdad was conquered by the Mongols and the Tartars twice. The Mongol leader Hulagu rounded up the residents and had them executed which went on for weeks. The city was then burned to the ground. In 1393 came the Tartars that sacked the city and then in 1401 they returned under Tamerlane who ordered his men to come to him with the heads of two Baghdadis. There were said to be 120 towers of skulls afterwards. He then had the city leveled. This bloodletting would continue into the present when Iraq fell into civil war after the 2003 U.S. invasion. The author wrote that Baghdad’s history is one of creating art and culture and then destroying them. It’s these constant ups and downs that help make the book an interesting read.

 

The author’s writing style also draws you in. When discussing an Abbasid civil war for instance he says, “Most outlandish of all was the archer at the Shammasiya Gate [in Baghdad] faced with a belligerent North African who would routinely approach the gate, bare his backside and fart at the defenders while hurling abuse at them. ‘One day,’ the Baghdadi recalled, ‘I selected an arrow for him, and shot it right through his anus. It came out at his throat as he fell dead.’ His body was taken and hung up for public display. Rarely in the annals of conflict has there been such demonstrable need for a rearguard.” It makes the book much more readable than an academic history would be as Marozzi proves to be a true storyteller.

 

Baghdad is one of the great cities of the world due to its rich and lengthy history and bringing that to life is what Justin Marozzi accomplishes in Baghdad, City of Peace, City of Blood, A History In Thirteen Centuries. The majority of the book is on the Abbasid and Ottoman periods because that obviously covers centuries but even the modern era is well done. Today Baghdad is mostly associated with violence and the U.S. occupation. Marozzi shows that there is much, much more to the city.

 

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