Book excerpt: The great nomad conqueror Tamerlane rose to power in 1370 in the ruins of the Mongol Empire and led his armies of conquest from Russia to India, from Turkestan to Anatolia. In this, the first full study of an extraordinary person, Beatrice Forbes Manz examines Tamerlane as the founder of a nomad conquest dynasty and as a supremely talented individual, raising many current questions about the mechanisms of state formation, the dynamics of tribal politics, and the relations of tribes to central leadership.