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Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World | 
 enlarge | Manufacturer: Three Rivers Press
Category: EBooks
List Price: $14.95
Buy New: $9.99
You Save: $4.96 (33%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  120 reviews
Sales Rank: 1349
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Dewey Decimal Number: 950.21092
ASIN: B000FCK206
Publication Date: March 22, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
The name Genghis Khan often conjures the image of a relentless, bloodthirsty barbarian on horseback leading a ruthless band of nomadic warriors in the looting of the civilized world. But the surprising truth is that Genghis Khan was a visionary leader whose conquests joined backward Europe with the flourishing cultures of Asia to trigger a global awakening, an unprecedented explosion of technologies, trade, and ideas. In Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford, the only Western scholar ever to be allowed into the Mongols’ “Great Taboo”—Genghis Khan’s homeland and forbidden burial site—tracks the astonishing story of Genghis Khan and his descendants, and their conquest and transformation of the world.
Fighting his way to power on the remote steppes of Mongolia, Genghis Khan developed revolutionary military strategies and weaponry that emphasized rapid attack and siege warfare, which he then brilliantly used to overwhelm opposing armies in Asia, break the back of the Islamic world, and render the armored knights of Europe obsolete. Under Genghis Khan, the Mongol army never numbered more than 100,000 warriors, yet it subjugated more lands and people in twenty-five years than the Romans conquered in four hundred. With an empire that stretched from Siberia to India, from Vietnam to Hungary, and from Korea to the Balkans, the Mongols dramatically redrew the map of the globe, connecting disparate kingdoms into a new world order.
But contrary to popular wisdom, Weatherford reveals that the Mongols were not just masters of conquest, but possessed a genius for progressive and benevolent rule. On every level and from any perspective, the scale and scope
of Genghis Khan’s accomplishments challenge the limits of imagination. Genghis Khan was an innovative leader, the first ruler in many conquered countries to put the power of law above his own power, encourage religious freedom, create public schools, grant diplomatic immunity, abolish torture, and institute free trade. The trade routes he created became lucrative pathways for commerce, but also for ideas, technologies, and expertise that transformed the way people lived. The Mongols introduced the first international paper currency and postal system and developed and spread revolutionary technologies like printing, the cannon, compass, and abacus. They took local foods and products like lemons, carrots, noodles, tea, rugs, playing cards, and pants and turned them into staples of life around the world. The Mongols were the architects of a new way of life at a pivotal time in history.
In Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford resurrects the true history of Genghis Khan, from the story of his relentless rise through Mongol tribal culture to the waging of his devastatingly successful wars and the explosion of civilization that the Mongol Empire unleashed. This dazzling work of revisionist history doesn’t just paint an unprecedented portrait of a great leader and his legacy, but challenges us to reconsider how the modern world was made.
From the Hardcover edition.
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“Reads like the Iliad. . . Part travelogue, part epic narrative.” —Washington Post
“It’s hard to think of anyone else who rose from such inauspicious beginnings to something so awesome, except maybe Jesus.” —Harper’s
“Weatherford’s lively analysis restores the Mongol’s reputation, and it takes wonderful learned detours. . . . Well written and full of suprises.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Weatherford is a fantastic storyteller. . . . [His] portrait of Khan is drawn with sufficiently self-complicating depth. . . . Weatherford’s account gives a generous view of the Mongol conqueror at his best and worst.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune
From the Trade Paperback edition.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 115 more reviews...
 A MUST READ August 29, 2008
Everyone that is interested in politics should read this book. It is truely amazing. I traveled to Mongolia this summer and the Mongolians truely lookup to Chengis Khan and for good reason.
What a book! August 19, 2008
I couldn't put this book down. If you're interested in the Mongols, or Khan himself, or history, or just want a great read, this would be the book to buy. It will make all other history books read like dry text books.
Genghis Kahn as you never knew him July 20, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a superb history of Genghis Kahn and the Mongol Hords, without the European and Islamic biases that go with it. The Mongol conquerers and rulers come across as more competent and, dare I say it, more tolerant than the people they conquered, albeit part of the same milieu of conquering, taking spoils of war, and enslaving as most people of their day. As rulers they actually understood economics and commerce better than most and brought prosperity and stability the the worlds they ruled.
No pleasure domes. July 4, 2008
Im not going to rehash the story because others here have done it thoroughly. The book was easy to read and seems to fly in the face of the usual opinion of Genghis Kahn as a blood thirsty rapist mongrel. Apparently new original documents surfaced after the fall of the Soviet Union and scholars got together to pin down the real story.
I too wondered about the missing reference to geneticist's discovery about his Y chromosome, which appears to show that he might just have been the most prolific lover in the last couple of millennia! But not having those facts on hand, like where did they get his dna from anyway since his grave has never been discovered.
Also missing is Coleridge's poem
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
It was interesting to realize that the wives actually administered the kingdoms because the Kahns were off making war. Genghis seemed to have loved his wife a great deal according the the documents plus he did battle for her after she was kidnapped. When she returned pregnant he raised the son as his very own. He seemed to turn out to be his best son. The author is kind of sappy. He is always comparing Genghis to the roman catholic church which slaughtered countless people at the same time Genghis was roaming around.
 Genghis Khan, his empire, and Europe June 21, 2008
14 out of 15 found this review helpful
This is a well written, nicely flowing work. The author, Jack Weatherford, traces the life and time of Genghis Khan, born as Temujin, and his descendants. He notes the impact of the plague on the Mongols and how that plague spread, to some extent by the Mongols. And he makes the claim that the Mongols had an appreciable impact on the West's Renaissance.
Weatherford begins by noting the purpose of his book (Page xxxv): "The focus remains on the mission of our work: to understand Genghis Khan and his impact on world history." The book is in three parts: first, Genghis Khan's rise to power and the development of the Mongol Empire; second, the period when the Mongols became a major world player, until the empire began devouring itself with internecine warfare; third, the effect of the Mongols on the development of modern society. There is a useful genealogy at the start of the book; however, the book would have benefited greatly with an ample supply of maps, so that the reader could trace developments geographically.
The book does a terrific job of describing Khan's background--from his youth until he began developing a powerhouse, to his death. His military forces used innovative tactics that baffled his opponents, adapting Mongol warriors' mobility to advantage. The Mongols expanded their sway until--at its greatest point, it was larger than the Roman Empire at its height. It stretched, in 1260, from China to Moscow and Kiev, and to the doorsteps of Vienna, from Baghdad to Samarkand.
Weatherford goes on to discuss the Empire after Genghis Khan's death. It continued to function until the combat among his sons led to more and more internal troubles. This depiction of internal problems, again, is well done.
It amazes me how detailed is the discussion of people and events from so long ago.
However, when he comes to argue that the Mongol Empire sparked the Renaissance and later European history, It appears to me that his grasp exceeds his reach. I am not certain that quoting Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales" with references to Genghis Khan (as part of his argument) is compelling. Nonetheless, while I did not find his case so convincing, it did cause me to reflect on important historical issues, and that--in itself--is a contribution.
In short, a well done book on the Mongol Empire and its founder. Worth taking a look at. . . .
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