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Podcast: New Books in Medieval History
Episode: Shivan Mahendrarajah, "A History of Herat: From Chingiz Khan to Tamerlane" (Edinburgh UP, 2022)
Description: Shivan Mahendrarajah's A History of Herat: From Chingiz Khan to Tamerlane (Edinburgh University Press, 2022) follows the history of the city, from its desolation under Chingiz Khan in 1222, to its capitulation to Tamerlane in 1381. Unlike the other o quarters of Khurasan (Balkh, Marw, Nishapur), which were ravaged by the Mongols, Herat became an important political, cultural and economic centre of the eastern Islamic world. The post-Mongol age in which an autochthonous Tajik dynasty, the Kartids, ruled the region set the foundations for Herat’s Timurid-era splendors.Divided into two parts (a political-military history and a social-economic history), the book e...