Facing a changing world balance, Obama makes odd choices

Is the world back to where it was around the year 1800? That’s a conclusion suggested by a reading of British historian John Darwin’s recent book, After Tamerlane, which assesses the rise and falls of empires after the death in 1405 of the famously bloodthirsty Muslim/Mongol monarch.

From his Central Asia base, Tamerlane conquered Persia and lands from Egypt to India, destroying captured cities and piling up enormous piles of skulls. His fame has endured, from Christopher Marlowe’s Elizabethan play to the first name of the slain Boston Marathon bomber.