Over thirteen centuries, Baghdad has enjoyed both cultural & commercial pre-eminence, boasting artistic & intellectual sophistication & an economy once the envy of the world. It was here, in the time of the Caliphs, that the Thousand & One Nights were set. Yet it has also been a city of great hardships, beset by epidemics, famines, floods, & numerous foreign invasions which have brought terrible bloodshed. This is the history of its storytellers & its tyrants, of its philosophers & conquerors. Here, in the first new history of Baghdad in nearly 80 years, Justin Marozzi brings to life the whole tumultuous history of what was once the greatest capital on earth.