[Review] Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

Abstract

Jack Weatherford has crafted an elegant narrative of Genghis Khan and the Mongolian imperial age expertly synthesizing existing historiography on the Mongols, with a tour through the customs of the Mogul peoples with a cultural history of how Chinese, Middle Eastern, and European peoples rewrote the history of the Mongols as one of sheer barbarism. Throughout, Weatherford threads his expert knowledge of the cultural anthropology of tribal peoples into a broad historiographical context, and argues for the modernity, pluralism, and long-term contributions of Mongolian rule to the political, cultural and military development of Early Modern Europe, Islam, and China.