Baghdad: City of Peace, City of Blood--A History in Thirteen Centuries Hardcover – Illustrated, November 4, 2014

Learned so much reading this book and at the same time enjoyed every page - so well written. Congratulations.

fantastic overview of the history of this unfortunate city, helps the reader to put into perspective recent woes as only one in a long series of destructions and rebuilding in a decadence process from the times of harun al rachid onwards. highly reccommended if you want to know more about the cradle of civilization and at the same time in-civilization (in the hands of the likes of Sadam, Tamerlan and company).

Excellent history of the magnificent "City of Piece". The first half of the book is truly astonishing. Highly recommended.

Fascinating read given the state of Baghdad today - in its heyday an intellectuals city then troubled by natural disasters and incursions by surrounding tribes and sacked by the northern raiders. Great writing, vivid descriptions of the many faces of life in a city over the centuries.

Great in depth history. Helped with a report. A lot of effort put in by author. Studying Baghdad I would say this was the best secondary source I found by far.

Very interesting historical read (actually a little depressing & dry), which could use less repetition and better chronological organisation.

An extremely thorough and unbiased historical perspective while being an interesting read. Excellent.

Obviously, the history of Baghdad is important to us because the current conflicts in that region. However, in the Middle Ages it was one of the major cities of the world, a center of commerce, learning, arts and science. In this city, modern algebra and the coffee house were invented. It was a cosmopolitan cities consisting of many religions and ethnic groups. Also, Baghdad has served as the location for many stories and tales such as the Arabian/Thousand and One Nights in the Middle Ages and Agatha Christie mysteries in the twentieth century.It is interesting to note that Baghdad is a created city. A group of Sunni muslins known as the Abbasids defeated the ruling Umayyads who were Shia. An early Abbasaid Caliph was named Mansur. He wanted to find a new capital for the Muslim empire; the previous capital had been Damascus. Mansur picks the location of Baghdad to be the empire's new capital. It was founded in the mid-700s. Baghdad in Persian means "City of Peace".It has been said that those who don't know history are doomed to repeat its mistakes. In this book, I thought of a different saying; those who know history won't be surprised by the present. The founder of Baghdad executed many people.However, there is one story about Mansur, the founder of Baghdad that for me made the whole book worth reading. Mansur ,before he goes on a pilgrimage, gives to his daughter-in-law, Rita, the keys to his storage rooms and tells her only to open the storage rooms if it is confirmed that he is dead. In 775, it is confirmed that Mansur has died.Upon receiving this confirmation, Rita and her husband, Mansur's son, go down to the storage rooms thinking they were going to find a hidden treasure. Instead they find a bunch of decomposing bodies. The ages of the corpses ranged from children to old men. The bodies were those of the descendants of the founders of the Shia lineage. In addition, a tag was placed in in the ear of each corpse naming the victim and how the victim was related to the founders of the Shia movement.Thus early in Baghdad's history were some patterns were established that run throughout its history. Obviously, there is the pattern of violence between the Sunni's and the Shias. There is a violence that seems very methodical and systematic. Also it seems many rulers of Baghdad seem to have felt it is not enough just to kill one's enemies; they also need to do something gruesome, horrific and unsanitary with their enemies’ corpses.It is the grandson of Mansur who is believed to model for Caliph of the Arabian Nights/Thousand and One Nights. After him the Abbasaid regime slowly declines. What destroyed Baghdad as a major city was the invasion of the Mongols in 1258 where the city was butchered by the Mongols; the rivers turned red from all the blood that the Mongols shed.Since 1258, Baghdad has been invaded multiple times and has suffered from major plagues which have decimated the city. It has been under the rule of the Persians and different groups of Turks. The Ottoman Empire and different European countries tried to modernize Baghdad in the nineteenth century.After the First World War, the British took over Baghdad and then a pro-British Iraqi monarch was installed. During this time Baghdad seems to have undergone a bit of a renaissance.Then Sadaam Hussain took over. Even by Iraqi standards he was violent. Even before the US invasion of Iraq, the Iraqis were suffering from embargos placed on Iraq by the US.Baghdad has changed significantly from its founding to the present time. Once Baghdad was a major intellectual center, now all its thinkers want to leave. For much of Baghdad's history, the Jewish population was ten to forty percent of Baghdad's population often playing a major role in the city; now there are only seven Jews in Baghdad. The Christians now are also in the process of leaving Baghdad.The quality of the writing of the book is uneven. The second half of the book is much easier to read then the first half. The first half of the book goes a lot into the geography of Baghdad which is not interesting if you have not been to the city and jumps around in time period being discussed.The politics of the city in this book can be confusing. I think this confusion is in part because of the subject matter and in part the author does have some difficulties in explaining it.However, despite these drawbacks the book was a highly interesting and worthwhile book to read.