Quote:🌞 From Tom Holland, [b]🌞 acclaimed author of Rubicon and other superb works of popular history and co-host of the hit podcast THE REST IS HISTORY, comes a thrillingly panoramic (and incredibly timely) account of the rise of Islam.[/b]

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.