Aleppo : a history / Ross Burns.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 306-324) and index.

Setting the scene -- Bronze and Iron ages. Environment -- A high place -- Bronze age (c. 3600 -- c. 1200 BC) -- The Storm god -- Transition to the Iron age (c. 1200 -- c. 900 BC) -- Neo-Assyrian dominance (883 -- 612 BC) -- Neo-Babylonian and Persian rule (612 -- 333 BC) -- Alexander (333 -- 323 BC) -- Greek and Roman Aleppo . Seleucus' tetrapolis -- Hellenistic Aleppo (Beroia) -- The Syrian goddess -- Collapse (c. 100 -- 65 BC) -- Enter Rome (64 BC) -- Wider challenges -- From pagan to Christian -- the Byzantine transition -- In Antioch's orbit -- Byzantine Aleppo in a world of churches and monasteries (353 -- 637). Bidding for god -- Fortress city -- Transition to an Islamic order -- Aleppo on a new frontier (637 -- 947). A soft transition -- The Umayyads -- The 'Abbasids, rule from Iraq -- A delicate balance -- between Turkic and Arab worlds (947 -- 1097). Enter the Turks -- Hamdanids (in Aleppo 947 -- 1004) -- Curtain raider to the crusades? -- Seljuk foothold in Aleppo -- Fortress of Islam -- Aleppo and the first Crusade (1098 -- 1127). A Christian jihad? -- Antioch vs Aleppo -- On to Jerusalem -- The Antioch?Aleppo front 1098 -- 1120 -- Zengid Aleppo (1127-74). Zengids -- The ascent of Nur al-Din Zengi (r. 1146-74) -- Building on message -- Into Egypt -- Saladin and the Ayyubids (1174 -- 1260). Saladin extends his rule -- Al-Zahir Ghazi (r. 1186 -- 1216) -- The northern front after 1188, trade -- Ayyubid building program -- the 'Chosen pearls' -- Ayyubid stability -- Fostering piety -- A new axis -- A wider world opens -- Aleppo under the Mamluks (1260 -- 1516). Mongols (1258-60) -- The Bahri Mamluks (1260 -- 1382) -- Building the Mamluk world -- Burji Mamluks (1382 -- 1516) -- The first Ottoman centuries (1516 -- 1750). Planting the Ottoman imperium -- Faith and trade -- An Ottoman 'image' -- City within a city -- al-Medina -- City administrative structures -- Strangers in the city -- Beyond the walls -- The Hajj -- Aleppo decline -- Inquiring minds -- End of the Silk route -- Modernising Aleppo (1750 -- 2000). Waning of authority -- Return to an 'imperial' style -- Disintegration and invasion -- A 'reordering' (tanzimat) -- Arabs in the late Ottoman world -- Reign of Abdul Hamid -- End of the house of Osman -- 1915, collapse of Ottomanism by consensus -- New frontiers -- A mandate for confusion -- Postscript. Boxed in -- The Baathist 'revolution' -- Rescuing ancient Aleppo -- Town planning -- 2011 -- A war for (or against?) Aleppo -- Hussein's lost child -- A confected Doomsday -- Appendix. Maps of Aleppo.