

The Legacy of Genghis Khan - lermontov
http://www.delanceyplace.com/view-archives.php?p=2832

======
DanAndersen
Anyone interested in the history of the Mongol Empire (or history in general)
would enjoy listening to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast, the 5-part
"Wrath of the Khans" series:

[http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-
history-43-wrath-o...](http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-
history-43-wrath-of-the-khans-i/)

[http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-
history-44-wrath-o...](http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-
history-44-wrath-of-the-khans-ii/)

[http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-
history-45-wrath-o...](http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-
history-45-wrath-of-the-khans-iii/)

[http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-
history-46-wrath-o...](http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-
history-46-wrath-of-the-khans-iv/)

[http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-
history-47-wrath-o...](http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-
history-47-wrath-of-the-khans-v/)

One thing you get from his depiction, which you don't get in the linked
article, is an up-close sense of what the Mongol invasion felt like "from the
inside" at the ground level, rather than the dispassionate view of "expanding
trade" and being "egalitarian." He emphasizes the impressiveness (if you want
to call it that) of the sheer scale of killings, done in a systematic way that
would be notable in the modern era but even more so when you realize that it
wasn't done with guns or gas chambers or industrialized tools, but by hand.

~~~
jmngomes
I'd also recommend reading "Warriors of the Steppe" for an account of the rise
and fall of the mongol empire.

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ianbicking
And yet it seems to me like the boundaries of Mongol conquest are the
boundaries of what we call "the Western World" \- and it outside Mongol rule
where power has come to rest. Brutal modernization - what is described in the
Khans' accomplishments - may indeed be flawed, even if we put aside (as
historians so easily do) the lives and suffering of all those who lived
through those times.

~~~
x5n1
"The traditional European method of warfare of melee combat between knights
ended in catastrophe when it was deployed against the Mongol forces as the
Mongols were able to keep a distance and advance with superior numbers. The
New Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 29 says that "Employed against the Mongol
invaders of Europe, knightly warfare failed even more disastrously for the
Poles at the Battle of Legnica and the Hungarians at the Battle of Mohi in
1241. Feudal Europe was saved from sharing the fate of China and Muscovy not
by its tactical prowess but by the unexpected death of the Mongols' supreme
ruler, Ögedei, and the subsequent eastward retreat of his armies."

~~~
ianbicking
Indeed it is geography not merit that saved Europe, which makes me wonder if
the Mongol invasion was a curse, not a benefit, unlike the implication of this
excerpt.

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LinuxBender
The article leaves out an important detail. His name. Genghis Khan is just a
title/rank. His name was Temujin.

------
a8da6b0c91d
I'd have noted the demographics altering mass slaughter of innocents first and
foremost. The legacy is really mostly a brief interval of charred cities and
libraries, and enormous mass graves. The whole empire unraveled pretty quickly
after his death with petty squabbling. To take in the big picture and make
special note of the fact that the Mongols happened to be a bit more
egalitarian than many of the peoples they conquered is frankly a weird
perspective.

