Looking for dramatizations of the sack of Baghdad.

November 17, 2012 3:35 PM

Are there any good dramatizations of the sack of Baghdad by the Mongols?

I finished reading Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon and got it into my head that he should write a novel about the sack of Baghdad. Now I really want to find any novels (or films, or whatever) that present the wonders of the Islamic empire, the fury of the Mongol army, and the forces and events surrounding the burning of the Library of Baghdad. Any suggestions?

posted by cthuljew to Media & Arts (6 answers total)

Stephenson and others wrote The Mongoliad, which includes the Mongol horde doing its thing.
posted by rmd1023 at 3:57 PM on November 17, 2012 [2 favorites]

Conn Iggulden's books (which go by different names in different regions) on the family of Genghis Khan are an excellent read. The last one includes the sack of Baghdad, but they're all worth a read in you're interested in the Mongol army and its methods.
posted by Prof Iterole at 5:53 PM on November 17, 2012 [2 favorites]

Dan carlin is in the midst of a four part (+?) series about the Mongol empire.
posted by empath at 8:43 PM on November 17, 2012

I don't know if anything by Naseem Hijazi has been translated into English, but he's written a whole series of novels about that period in Islamic history.
posted by bardophile at 9:37 PM on November 17, 2012

I don't remember how much he gets into Baghdad, but Jack Weatherford's Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World is worth checking out.
posted by silvergoat at 11:25 PM on November 17, 2012

Response by poster: Thanks, y'all!
posted by cthuljew at 1:11 AM on November 20, 2012