Reviewed in the United States on May 1, 2006
When reading biographies it is always important to keep in mind, that what Peter says about Paul often tells you more about Peter than about Paul. It is certainly true in this case(perhaps more so than is usual), for i am sure i learned as much or more about J.Weatherford when reading this book then i did about G.Khan, although the problem is that most of it is projected onto Khan rather than honestly attributed to the author. But no matter, consider the book a whopping good historical novel, for it reads smoothly like a good addictive detective novel until almost the end. That is the book's greatest strength, and the author's, it is fine and engrossing reading, even if it presents a distorted and revisionist viewpoint of the great Mongolian world conqueror, it does so in such a way that people will actually read and enjoy the book. J.Weatherford has my welcome permission to rewrite any engineering and math text i've ever been subjected to, he can alter the formulas and make the equations as unbalanced as he wants, the sacrifice of truth and correctness to readability is worth the exchange. (not really but you get the idea)
As has been remarked in several other amazon reviews, the book is uneven:
Part I The Reign of Terror on the Steppe: 1162-1206
1: The Blood Clot
2:Tale of Three Rivers
3: War of the Khans
Part II The Mongol World War: 1211-1261
4: Spitting on the Golden Khan
5: Sultan Versus Khan
6: Discovery and Conquest of Europe
7: Warring Queens
Part III The Global Awakening: 1262-1962
8:Khubilai Khan and the New Mongol Empire
9: Their Golden Light
10: The Empire of Illusion
Epilogue: The Eternal Spirit of Genghis Khan
Parts I and II are excellent. Better history, sticking more to G.Khan than to J.Weatherford and his moralizing of the Mongols. Part III is worth reading but only if you like the big ideas that Weatherford is trying to sell: the Mongols as internationalizers. As the book puts it, G.Khan tears down the walls between the cities, allowing their merchants to exchange goods without political interference. The author may very well be right in his analysis, but i would prefer that it be introduced as analysis and not as biography. So, generally the author's top down analysis condemns the book on the factual level to historical novel status. Akin to rewriting a math book and getting the formulas wrong because they read better in the revisionist form. As a result, because the book interests me, not just at the low level of biographical details, but because i am interested in these high order analysis principles i collected a few recommendations as i read the amazon reviews, find them attached. Furthermore, I thought at first, that the introduction was a joke, the secret history of the mongols, the forbidden zone around a sacred mountain set off internal alarms that this guy is wacko, so don't start reading there, too many red flags. Read either of the first 3 chapters to get a flavor and frankly to get addicted to read the rest.
My big question is if the death and destruction was worth the universal, widespread, free flow of goods, ideas and people that followed under a unified(kindof4in1) Mongol empire?
It is a moral question, complicated by the fact that the Black Death may not have followed the Mongol lines of communication as they did, killing even more people, if the Mongols had never conquered the known world. I know it is playing the "what if" game, which may not be the greatest way of handling nor understanding history. But it is one of the big issues of the book, the making of our modern world begins with the Mongol conquests (at least the gospel according to J.Weatherford) First, is it true or even a useful idea? and Second was it a good thing? I don't know, hence the list of further reading to do. But that is the legacy of this book, more questions, and that is why, despite it's shortcomings i rated it a 5 star. Books that ask these sorts of questions (big questions, moral questions, big picture principles) and encourage people to read them because of their style and ability to suck the reader in, are worth reading.
Does Genghis Khan need a good press agent(in addition to J.Weatherford)? Was his memory distorted and unjustly tied to Tamerlane? I don't know, but i know i don't trust this author to tell me it was. Did the Mongols act as a conduit for lots of good ideas from China to Europe? Of course, printing, gunpowder, compass for example. Was their's a benevolent, all faith's compete equally for the Khan's attention, state over religion, pragmatic rule that brought enlightenment to those it conquered, while carrying away the skilled and intelligentsia and killing off the hated aristocracy? Perhaps. Was it the last great battle in the Cain versus Abel, horsemen versus planter, ger versus city, tabernacle versus temple, great metaphoric battle? It's not a bad organizing principle even when it sacrifices historical detail to persuasiveness. After all, much of the value of reading lies in what you remember in a year, versus the lost details which escape our diminishing memories, those big images will remain in my mind long after the textbook details they substituted for vaporize as did the Mongol empire.
but don't let this review miss the first big point, Genghis Khan was a genius, of first order rank, a worth subject of biographies and of directed reading. What makes men like this, what they did to our world and what that means to us are important issues. nor the second big point, history is moralizing, by it's very nature, but usually it isn't so blatant or obvious. Which is a good-bad thing, at least with this book it is so obvious that you recognize it, others sneek it in below the level of consciousness and you imagine that they're objective and unmoralizing when they just hide their message better. History is written, not for the past but to influence the future by changing the people's minds about how their present really, truely got here. In that way, because the book is so heavy handed in it's analysis, his revisionist message will be rejected more often than it is taken seriously and examined. Maybe that is sad, perhaps the Mongols are the first empire builders that ushered in the modern age.
so, i do recommend the book, but not for the details but for the big picture, and understanding that it is rather distorted by the author's strong revisionist ideas. If you understand that you are learning about two men in reading the book, G.Khan and J.Weatherford, then you'll get the priorities close enough to get the book into the right slots in your mind, for what JW says about GK really does say as much about JW as it does about GK. If you want to learn more about GK and not about JW, see the books listed, and please email me with your recommendations at rwilliam2 at yahoo dot com. thanks.
reviewer recommendation:
Rene Grousset's "The Empire of the Steppes" or Harold Lamb's "The March of the Barbarians"
Genghis Khan or the Emperor of All Men by Harold Lamb
Genghis Khan and the Mongol Conquests 1190-1400 by Stephen R. Turnbull
Subotai the Valiant : Genghis Khan's Greatest General by Richard A. Gabriel
The Perilous Frontier by Barfield
