The Mongol invasions in the first half of the thirteenth century led to profound and shattering changes to the historical trajectory of Islamic West Asia. As this new volume in The Idea of Iran series suggests, sudden conquest from the east was preceded by events closer to home which laid the groundwork for the later Mongol success. In the mid-twelfth century the Seljuq empire rapidly unravelled, its vast provinces fragmenting into a patchwork of mostly short-lived principalities and kingdoms. In time, new powers emerged, such as the pagan Qara-Khitai in Central Asia; the Khwarazmshahs in Khwarazm, Khorosan and much of central Iran; and the Ghurids to the southeast. Yet all were blown away by the Mongols, who faced no resistance from a sufficiently muscular imperial competitor and whose influx was viewed by contemporaries as cataclysmic. Distinguished scholars including David O Morgan and the late C E Bosworth here discuss the dynasties that preceded the invasion - and aspects of their literature, poetry and science - as well as the conquerors themselves and their rule in Iran from 1219 to 1256.

David O Morgan is Emeritus Professor of History and Religious Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. One of the foremost authorities on the Mongols and the Mongol Empire writing in English, he is the author of The Mongols (1986, second edition 2007) and Medieval Persia, 1040-1797 (1988, second edition 2015). He co-edited with Anthony Reid Volume 3 of The New Cambridge History of Islam titled The Eastern Islamic World, Eleventh to Eighteenth Centuries. He is a former editor of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1987-99) and is now an advisory board member of the book series Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization. Sarah Stewart is Lecturer in Zoroastrianism at SOAS in the University of London. A former Deputy Director of the London Middle East Institute (LMEI), she has co-edited six previous volumes in The Idea of Iran series. She curated The Everlasting Flame exhibition in London in 2013, serving as editor of a volume published by I.B.Tauris in the same year under the same title. She also co-edited with Alan Williams a later book entitled The Zoroastrian Flame: Exploring Religion, History and Tradition (I.B.Tauris, 2016).