71st book of 2020. ** Tidy History of an Important Story, Perhaps Too Tidy **
The story of Genghis Khan is of course amazing. If I could start over with history, this might be the first story I’d want to learn. Genghis Khan (Temüjin) started as an orphan and a slave, eventually won over his rivals, unified the steppe, then launched a dynasty that over the course of the next 100 years conquered more of humanity than any other. Mongolian steppe culture may be alien, but seems like the nomadic version of many modern successful companies: “they did not find honor in fighting, found honor in winning.”
Christian, Islamic, and even Chinese empires were so unprepared for the new culture and means of warfare that most considered the Mongols to be a punishment from god. Only foiled by humidity in the Indian subcontinent, the Mongols Empires made it as far as a beachhead in Japan, settlements in Indonesia, the sea of Galilee to the south and the Hungarian plains in the west.
For the massive effect that the Mongols had in the 13th century, they were a spent force by the end of the 14th. Unlike the Arabs, or western culture during modernity, Mongols assimilated into the cultures they ruled (see the Yuan dynasty) rather than assimilating others into the Mongol fold. Their religion had no unifying document that could last beyond the first ruling family, and the black death brought a swift end to an empire that otherwise could have hung on for centuries.
Weatherford presents a great story, but more serious historians have reservations about the accuracy. Normally, I do not fear factual inaccuracies, as all history is a story. In this case, I found myself taking notes on interesting facts only to find they were provably inaccurate. For example, the author claims that the Mongol sack of Baghdad was the only time Baghdad was invaded by a foreign force until the American invasion in 2003. In reality the British also invaded in 1917. A full debunking can be found here: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=10378 which makes me think of this as a readable outline, but nothing should be believed unless crosschecked.