In the Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire

The acclaimed author of Rubicon and other superb works of popular history now produces a thrillingly panoramic (and incredibly timely) account of the rise of Islam.
 
No less significant than the collapse of the Roman Republic or the Persian invasion of Greece, the evolution of the Arab empire is one of the supreme narratives of ancient history, a story dazzlingly rich in drama, character, and achievement.  Just like the Romans, the Arabs came from nowhere to carve out a stupefyingly vast dominion—except that they achieved their conquests not over the course of centuries as the Romans did but in a matter of decades. Just like the Greeks during the Persian wars, they overcame seemingly insuperable odds to emerge triumphant against the greatest empire of the day—not by standing on the defensive, however, but by hurling themselves against all who lay in their path.

• Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic
• Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar
• Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West
• The Forge of Christendom: The End of Days and the Epic Rise of the West
• Quranic Geography
• The Square and the Tower: Networks and Power, from the Freemasons to Facebook
• The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS
• The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam
• Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past
• The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam