The Mongol Storm

Making and Breaking Empires in the Medieval Near East

By: Nicholas Morton

Narrated by: Nick Biadon

How the Mongol invasions of the Near East reshaped the balance of world power in the Middle Ages.

For centuries, the Crusades have been central to the story of the medieval Near East, but these religious wars are only part of the region's complex history. As The Mongol Storm reveals, during the same era the Near East was utterly remade by another series of wars: the Mongol invasions.

In a single generation, the Mongols conquered vast swaths of the Near East and upended the region's geopolitics. Amid the chaos of the Mongol onslaught, long-standing powers such as the Byzantines, the Seljuk Turks, and the crusaders struggled to survive, while new players such as the Ottomans arose to fight back. The Mongol conquests forever transformed the region, while forging closer ties among societies spread across Eurasia.

This is the definitive history of the Mongol assault on the Near East and its enduring global consequences.

(P) 2022 Hodder & Stoughton Limited©2022 Nicholas Morton

Critic reviews

Deeply researched and elegantly written - essential reading (Dan Jones)

Erudite, often thrilling and much-needed (Daily Telegraph)

Brain-stretching . . . pulsating . . . irresistable . . . A reminder that the best history writing is eminently readable (The Sunday Times)

Revelatory, lively and stocked with colourful personalities (Literary Review)

The most exciting study of the Mongols and their encounters with the peoples of the Near East I have ever read (William Chester Jordan, Princeton University)

This expert study casts the Middle Ages in a new light (Publishers Weekly)

For anyone who loves history, especially with military and diplomatic focuses (Library Journal)