Listen free for 30 days
Listen with offer
-
The Book of Roads and Kingdoms
- Narrated by: Richard Fidler
- Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
£0.00 for first 30 days
Buy Now for £13.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Summary
When Richard Fidler came across the account of Ibn Fadlan—a tenth-century Arab diplomat who travelled all the way from Baghdad to the cold riverlands of modern-day Russia—he was struck by how modern his voice was, like that of a 21st century time-traveller dropped into a medieval wilderness. On further investigation, Fidler discovered this was just one of countless reports from Arab and Persian travellers of their adventures in medieval China, India, Africa and Byzantium. Put together, he saw these stories formed a crazy quilt picture of a lost world.
The Book of Roads and Kingdoms is the story of the medieval wanderers who travelled out to the edges of the known world during Islam's fabled Golden Age—an era when the caliphs of Baghdad presided over a dominion greater than the Roman Empire at its peak, stretching from North Africa to India. Imperial Baghdad, founded as the 'City of Peace', quickly became the biggest and richest metropolis in the world.
Winner of the Indie Book Awards Non Fiction 2023