The Great Arab Conquests: How The Spread Of Islam Changed The World We Live In [Hardcover]

"An exciting story gets extra colour thanks to Kennedy's ease with the sources" (THE SCOTSMAN )

"The story of the Arab conquests is a dramatic one and Kennedy makes a boldly ambitious attempt to tell it" (THE SUNDAY TIMES )

"Mr Kennedy tells a remarkable tale with skill and authority" (THE ECONOMIST )

"The Great Arab Conquests is history at its most vivid and enthralling.. a truly magnificent achievement." (THE NEW STATESMEN )

"fascinating and well-written" (The GUARDIAN )

"a superb history" (THE DAILY TELEGRAPH )

The story of the Arab conquests is a dramatic one and Kennedy makes a boldly ambitious attempt to tell it

Mr Kennedy tells a remarkable tale with skill and authority

The Great Arab Conquests is history at its most vivid and enthralling.. a truly magnificent achievement.

"fascinating and well-written"

"a superb history"

"An exciting story gets extra colour thanks to Kennedy's ease with the sources"

"The story of the Arab conquests is a dramatic one and Kennedy makes a boldly ambitious attempt to tell it"

"Mr Kennedy tells a remarkable tale with skill and authority"

"The Great Arab Conquests is history at its most vivid and enthralling.. a truly magnificent achievement."

Today's Arab world was created at breathtaking speed. Whereas the Roman Empire took over 200 years to reach its fullest extent, the Arab armies overran the whole Middle East, North Africa and Spain within a generation. They annhilated the thousand-year-old Persian Empire and reduced the Byzantine Empire to little more than a city-state based around Constantinople. Within a hundred years of the Prophet's death, Muslim armies destroyed the Visigoth kingdom of Spain, and crossed the Pyrenees to occupy southern France. This is the first popular English language account of this astonishing remaking of the political and religious map of the world. Hugh Kennedy's sweeping narrative reveals how the arab armies conquered almost everything in their path. One of the few academic historians with a genuine talent for story telling, he offers a compelling mix of larger-than-life characters, battles, treachery and the clash of civilizations.

Hugh Kennedy studied Arabic at the Middle East Centre for Arabic Studies before reading Arabic, Persian and History at Cambridge. Since 1972 he has taught in the Department of Mediaeval History at the University of St. Andrews. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2000.