Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The startling true history of how one extraordinary man from a remote corner of the world created an empire that led the world into the modern age—by the author featured in Echoes of the Empire: Beyond Genghis Khan.

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.

Our Top Reviews

Reviewer: Stephen Chakwin
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: So much of what we “knew” wasn’t true
Review: I came to this book with some preexisting ideas about the Mongols: they were formidable warriors, the most skilled and organized horse archers in history; great conquerors, but not skilled rulers; ferocious, bloodthirsty fighters fond of torture and of creating wastelands where there once had been cities; essentially smash-and-grab barbarian looters like the Vandals, the Huns, and other blights on ancient history.As Weatherfield shows in this beautifully-written, well thought-out book. Almost all of what I just wrote (except for the first description) is wrong. I suspect that this book started out as a book on historiography, the study of how history is understood and recorded, and then gradually changed into its present form as the author started to realize the implications of what he was learning. As I will discuss below, the historiography is eye-opening, but so is the history.Many of us know that the Mongols and other steppe-based tribes in East-Central Asia somehow became united into a single military entity and swept in all directions, conquering virtually every civilization then encountered, much as the Arabs united and conquered in the Middle East and beyond in the 7th Century.It turns out that the “somehow” was one man, an outcast from his tribe, who gradually and patiently built up alliances and started to focus the endless, chaotic warfare that had been the life of his people from time immemorial. Genghis Khan has a reputation as a military genius, but he was something even more rare: a man who recognized his mistakes and learned from them. His great goal was to unite the people of his region into a single nation that he would lead and, day after day, year after year, he worked to make this happen. He wound up with a single nation with an extraordinarily powerful army. He wound up launching that army at Khwarezmia, a powerful neighboring Muslim state that occupied what are now Iraq, Iran, much of Afghanistan, etc. after trade delegations he had sent there seeking an alliance had been killed or mutilated, and conquered it in short order. This produced an enormous flow of wealth for the Mongols and was the beginning of an empire that stretched from the Pacific Ocean to Hungary and up through what are now Ukraine and Russia. Part 1 of the book is how this came about.Part 2 of the book is the consequence of those conquests. The Mongols, ferocious and terrifyingly efficient in battle, were just as businesslike as rulers. In battle, their goal was to destroy resistance as quickly as possible with the least risk to themselves. In running their empire, their goal was to create a peaceful and safe place where commerce could flourish and enrich the rulers and, incidentally, the populace. They enforced religious toleration, with the religious authorities subject to the state. They created a system of laws that were uniform and, by the standards of the time, enlightened. They had no use for torture (with very few exceptions). They worked hard to ensure the free and safe flow of goods from end to end of their state. The Mongol Empire at its peak was probably one of the best places to live in the world. It had some very wise rulers, chief among whom was probably Khublai Khan of Marco Polo fame. It created a new silk road by sea parallel and much faster and more efficient than the old land routes. Unfortunately for those who lived there (and in many other places) the Black Death appeared in the 1300s and all the safe travel routes that had sustained the empire’s trade were now channels to bring plague and death to tens of millions of people. The commercial structure collapsed and took the Mongol political structure with it. Some vestiges or successors to the Mongol governments remained in place, but the giant entity was gone. Weatherfield argues that the commerce fostered by the Mongols brought goods and ideas to Europe that helped lead to the Renaissance.Part 3 is an examination of how the Western perception of the Mongols and their ruler went from admiration at the time of the Empire’s existence to scornful during the Enlightenment and even worse with the growth of eugenics in the 19th century and after. Humans were arbitrarily divided into races, which were arbitrarily assigned places on some scale of human development. The East Asians were called Mongol or Mongoloid and were associated with children with developmental handicaps, with primitive and barbarous culture and terrible laws designed to keep East Asians out of the U.S. and widespread discrimination. The Soviet Union and the Chinese Communist government worked hard and cruelly to suppress all signs and memory of past Mongol greatness (including descendants of past rulers)when they occupied what is now Mongolia.Weatherfield shows admirable restraint in not pounding his readers with how advanced in how many ways East and Central Asia was for so long in comparison with Europe.Weatherfield is trained as an anthropologist and his writing does much to bring the Mongol culture – as it existed in the past and continues today – to life.This is a compelling story compellingly told. It is well worth the time it will take to read it.

Reviewer: Joseph G. Wick
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Terrific but polemic
Review: I loved this book. It is a delightful read and very comprehensive. In fact, Genghis’s life is covered in a little over half the book. The rest deals with the consequences. Other reviews have mentioned the inaccuracies, and sometimes the author is unclear as to whether he is recounting legend or fact. Much of the book about Genghis himself is based on The Secret History, a rare book, difficult to translate, and obviously written for political reasons.A problem I have is the tone of the book. While the author wants to correct the erroneous and confused image of Genghis, he tries too hard to “rehabilitate” the image. This is to some extent quite justified. But, I think the tone is almost like that of Genghis’s PR agent. Of course it is a political year, so maybe I’m oversensitized.The author makes the very good point that the administration of Ghenghis, and to some extent his grandson Khubulai,employed many creative aspects from which we might learn.I’m puzzled, however, by the fact that Genghis was untutored and illiterate, typical of the Mongols, yet his administration required a lot of record keeping and arithmetical skills, the source of which is unclear. Moreover, the plethora of creative innovations would seem to have come from more than Genghis’s experience and observation. Perhaps the author might have delved more deeply into where these factors came from.The author makes a very persuasive argument that much of the foundations of the Renaissance came not from Crusaders grabbing texts from the Holy Land but from their observations of, and interest in, the Mongols. There is a great section on the bubonic plague, supposedly originating in Southern China, infecting the world due to the trade routes and mail system developed by the Mongols. This development prostrated Europe and the Mongols as well, although several centuries before the Renaissance.One interesting note, not made by the author, is the impact of these reforms on modern China. For instance, we read elsewhere of the neighborhood and workplace “councils” prevalent to this day in China. An argument can be made that these reflect mongol traditions. Further, some of the current politburo struggles are reminiscent of those of the Mongols in a rather striking way.Those in the military might also benefit from reading the analysis of Genghis’s military victories. He used the latest technologies, was highly unpredictable, focused on winning and winning only. Those enemies who gave up were treated well, those who didn’t were disposed of. The Mongols succeeded in abolishing the assassins, appeared to pacify Afghanistan, and subdued a major portion of the Muslim world. Would that we were that successful.Although the purpose of war was often the booty, the book also shows the problems associated with an economy based on warfare, booty or none.Despite the author’s academic background, the style is lucid and enjoyable. All in all, this is a very stimulating and enlightening book. I took one star away only because of the tone and what the author did not face, as described above.

Reviewer: Sahil Raza
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: The level of storytelling is off the charts! Amazing insights.

Reviewer: Cuauhtli Elizalde
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: By reading this book, I love even more ancient Mongolian history. Even I dreamt (I’m not kidding or exaggerating) about one of the sons of Temujin.

Reviewer: Winston Ling
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Estou acompanhando a execução das políticas de Donald Trump e consigo entender melhor o que anda acontecendo após a leitura deste livro. Assim como os mongóis conquistaram o mundo nos séculos XIII e XIV, estamos neste momento vivendo o limiar da era Americana sendo construída diante dos nossos olhos.

Reviewer: BINO65
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Per approfondire un tempo, un mondo davvero poco studiati

Reviewer: グエンホアンベトカイン
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Must read if you want to learn about the nomadic life

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