Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

published	March 22nd 2005 by Three Rivers Press
binding	Paperback
isbn	0609809644 (isbn13: 9780609809648)
ebook
pages	352
description	The Mongol army led by Genghis Khan subjugated more lands and people in twenty-five years than the Romans did in four hundred. In nearly every country...more [close] The Mongol army led by Genghis Khan subjugated more lands and people in twenty-five years than the Romans did in four hundred. In nearly every country the Mongols conquered, they brought an unprecedented rise in cultural communication, expanded trade, and a blossoming of civilization. Vastly more progressive than his European or Asian counterparts, Genghis Khan abolished torture, granted universal religious freedom, and smashed feudal systems of aristocratic privilege. From the story of his rise through the tribal culture to the explosion of civilization that the Mongol Empire unleashed, this brilliant work of revisionist history is nothing less than the epic story of how the modern world was made. [close]
date added	02-11-07 edit book

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For anyone wishing to understand modern history	2	4	03/11/2008 10:22PM

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Paul rated it:

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10/16/07

bookshelves: about-history

Read in October, 2007

Here is a surprising story well told. The history of Genghis Kahn's life and empire, told from the Mongol point of view, was only rendered into English in the 1970s. Written close to his lifetime, it assumed the reader knew a lot about life and customs in 13th-century Mongolia. Cultural anthropologist Jack Weatherford supplemented his study of this and a wide variety of other accounts by visiting Mongolia with an interdisciplinary team of scholars in the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet U...more Here is a surprising story well told. The history of Genghis Kahn's life and empire, told from the Mongol point of view, was only rendered into English in the 1970s. Written close to his lifetime, it assumed the reader knew a lot about life and customs in 13th-century Mongolia. Cultural anthropologist Jack Weatherford supplemented his study of this and a wide variety of other accounts by visiting Mongolia with an interdisciplinary team of scholars in the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union when Mongolia became open to outsiders and openly enthusiastic about its heritage. With the benefit of his colleagues' insights and direct experience of Mongolia's land and people, he has succeeded in bringing their story to life in accessible and enjoyable prose.

The Mongols' story pulls together familiar bits of European and world history that many of us hold in separate mental compartments. Genghis Kahn (1162-1227) was a contemporary of Richard the Lionhearted and King John (who signed Magna Carta). St. Francis was born and died in his lifetime, and Franciscans later served as ambassadors of popes and kings to the Mongol court. The Teutonic Order was founded a century after the First Crusade and just eight years before Genghis became Kahn, as the notion of perpetual crusade was taking root in Europe. For a century Seljuk Turks had held a territory now in modern Turkey, which they had taken from Byzantium - the Greek remnant of the Roman Empire. The disintegrating Abassid caliphate presided from opulent Baghdad over a troubled Muslim empire. The Sung dynasty - nostalgically remembered as the golden age of scholar-gentlemen - ruled China. The Minamoto shoguns controlled Japan. All these lands and peoples were connected, efficiently and intensely, by the Mongol Empire. Motivated by desire for the goods and skills of their neighbors, and having superior military tools and tactics, Genghis Kahn and his successors conquered territory stretching from the Pacific to the Mediterranean. They developed the infrastructure and amenities of the ancient Silk Road, facilitating trade and cultural contact with a postal system, paper money, and other advances. They tolerated all religions that consented to serve the state; some Mongol leaders, including at least one Great Kahn, were Christian. When a papal representative explained the main tenets of Christianity to the Mongol court in 1246, he was not - as he thought - bringing news. In the mid-13th century, the court sponsored a debate among representatives of various branches of the Muslim, Buddhist and Christian faiths. It was inconclusive, but anticipated the spirit (and exceeded the scope) of the Reformation by almost three hundred years. In the 14th century, the ease of trade and cultural contact facilitated by the Mongols also made a path for the bubonic plague to spread from China through central Asia not only to Europe, but to the Middle East and Africa as well, and even to North America. Weatherford speculates that the plague may finally have destroyed the Vikings' struggling Greenland colony. In the end, the Mongol empire broke into four parts - in Russia, Iran-Iraq, central Asia (later to become the Moghul empire in India), and China - each with its distinct and lasting impact on regional history.

This may be the earliest story we have of a global community. The empires of Rome, Persia and China were parochial by comparison to the Mongols'. More trade and cultural exchange took place during the 14th century than at any time we know about prior to age of the European explorers. Along with the moral quandary of empire, the Mongols faced all the opportunities and perils of globalization. Besides deepening my understanding of regional histories I already knew something about, and connecting the stories of different regions and peoples, this book helped me put the hopes and fears and challenges of today's world into useful perspective. And it's fun: an engaging, dramatic tale....less

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