In End of empire Australian Historian David Adams crosses Europe and Asia as he investigates the warrior kinds who created vast empires only for their families to later dismember the empire as they fight over the spoils. In a real "Game of thrones" the dysfunctional families of Attila the Hun; Timur (Tamerlane the Great); Edgar, King of the English and Charlemagne manage to lose all.

In telling the course of his travels, David visits the magnificent mosques of legendary Samarkand, archaeological digs at medieval English castles and the ancient walls of Constantinople.