Omar's Diary for Tuesday 22nd December 2015 and the history of Baghdad

Omar is more than pleased to announce that Man Servant has finally finished reading Justin Marozzi's 'Baghdad - City of Peace,City of Blood'.

This book, first published in 2014 so it is very up to date, took the Man Servat through 1200 years of history of a city that has been engulfed by wars, plagues and floodings that have visited the city with repetitious savagery.  Against this backdrop of seemingly endless tragedy the city became the centre of knowledge and learning in the known world up until about the time the Reformation got going in Europe.  It was a city where mathematicians calculated the circumference of the earth with a length of rope and a primitive protractor.  It was a place where if you could write poetry, sing, translate or transcribe learned books and papers you would have been feted by the calphs and pashas like today's Premiership football players.  It is where the tales of the 1001 Arabian nights.  It was where there was a publishing industry with printing presses some 200 years before Caxton set up his printing workshop in Westminster in the 14th Century.

The spirit of reading continues to this day with a street some 650 feet of bookstalls and shops on Mutannabbi Street named after a 'legendary tnth century poet'.  It is where the Baghdad intellectuals migrate to on Friday mornings to get hold of books to read.

Behind the facade of learning are tales of greed for riches and greed for power that course with pulsating vulgarity through the veins of the city's history from the first caliph Mansur who chose the site of Baghdad on the banks of the River Tigris for his round city, through the periods of mamaluke, pashas and right up to the 20th Century dictators who maintained their positions by exercising pure brutality and inhumanity on anyone who got in their way.

Despite all the tragedy the city has experienced, Julian Marozzi conveys a spirit that regardless of what happens the people will stay and get by somehow regardless of how tough life may be.

For anyone looking for some historical perspective on events unfolding in Iraq and the wider Middle East this is an easy read detailed and informative history which for those who want to study the subject further has a highly detailed bibliography and comprehensive index.

Paperback by Penguin £9.99  ISBN 978 - 0 -141 - 04710 -2