Download PDF | The Mongol Conquests In World History By Timothy May, Reaktion Books, 2012.
321 Pages
INTRODUCTION
When asked to write this book by the editor of the Globalities series, Jeremy Black, I did not hesitate, as the Mongols always seem to have at least a cameo appearance, if not a starring role, in the discussion of world history. The title of the project could easily have been changed to The Mongol Empire Is World History although it would look odd on the spine of a book. I can think of no period other than perhaps the past 200 years in which the world was more interconnected. The conquests of Alexander? Despite a brief foray to the Indus and the Libyan Desert, the Alexandrian world excluded much of Asia and virtually all of Africa. The Roman Empire? Largely a Mediterranean event except for the more rustic provinces to the north and a few merchants dealing with India.
Perhaps the Crusades? Again, primarily a Mediterranean event, although more of Europe and North Africa was involved, but it did not impact upon China or India. The Age of Exploration is always a good place to begin, but without the Mongol Empire would Columbus have sailed? After all, he was trying to reach the Great Khan in China. In short, the Mongol Empire is the very definition of world history. True, the Mongols did not have a huge impact on Africa or the New World, but for the Eurasian landmass no event or empire had a larger impact in history. The Mongols brought military innovation, international commerce, the spread of world religions and the dif - fusion of technology and ideas together in one crucible – the Mongol conquests. After the dust settled, the world had irrefutably changed and could never return to the way it once was. In the s John Andrew Boyle, the great historian of the Mongol Empire, coined the term ‘Mongol World Empire’ – and he hit the nail on the head. It is unknown if Boyle considered the Mongols through the lens of world history, but he clearly saw the Mongols as an empire that dominated the medieval world and could not be viewed in a strictly regional sense.
In his preface to Boyle’s The Mongol World Empire, Owen Lattimore noted that in order to properly understand the place of the Mongols in world history, ‘we need to bring into better balance the enormously rich and Middle Asian sources’. Lattimore alludes to a basic issue of the study of the Mongol Empire – the number of languages involved in the sources often leads to examining the Mongols in a regional rather than a holistic or world perspective. At the same time one should not only consider the Mongol World Empire in a geographical but also a temporally transcendent sense. The Mongol moment is truly a pivotal and perhaps an axial era in history. In many ways it is the dividing point between the pre-modern and the modern ages. This idea of the Mongol Empire as the dividing point, or perhaps even the beginning of modern history, is buttressed by the opinion of esteemed scholar of East Asia Arthur Waldron. In his introduction to Bertold Spuler’s classic work The Mongol Period (1994), the middle volume of Spuler’s trilogy on the history of the Muslim world, Waldron wrote:
Where should one begin the study of modern history? The soundest answer is probably with the Mongols. The great states of Eurasia today – China, Russia, and India, as well as most of the Middle East – all were once incorporated into Mongol empires, and changed by that experience. The modern history of those states, moreover, began when the Mongol empires ended then the component parts reconstituted themselves, emerging as successor states that, although independent, nevertheless bore an unmistakable Mongol stamp. Study the Mongol empires and their gradual breakdown, then, and you have the basis for an integrated understanding of contemporary Eurasia.
It is difficult to dispute Waldron’s contention. Indeed, it is only by investigating the Mongol Empire and the changes that it brought to the Eurasian continent that we truly see an integrated Eurasia and indeed an integrated world. While trade routes have connected cultures and civilizations for hundreds of years, the view of the world by a particular civilization was compartmentalized. The Romans possessed a clear view of the Roman world as did the empires of Iran and the many dynasties of China of theirs, but their vision of the world outside their respective borders remained murky. Although knowledge of the outside and the Other is always elusive, with the Mongol Empire unprecedented numbers of travellers, merchants, missionaries and others criss-crossed the Eurasian landmass and even beyond. Granted, many other regions remained outside the empire, but the ramifications of the advent of the Mongol Empire created conditions and events that led not only to an integrated Eurasia but an integrated world, which, of course, is what this volume will demonstrate.
The Mongol Empire’s importance in world history is most apparent in two fashions. The first is through its immense size at its peak, making it the largest contiguous empire in history – approximately 7.5 million sq km (14 million sq miles), or roughly the size of the continent of Africa. Although it became divided politically, nonetheless a con siderable amount of interaction existed across Eurasia and beyond through Mongol domains, no matter how one defines them. The second is shown by the sheer number of languages used in the sources related to the study of the Mongol Empire. Perhaps the most important are Chinese and Persian, based on the number of sources in these languages, but the sources also include Mongolian, Russian, Old Slavonic, Arabic, Latin, Old French, Japanese, Italian, Armenian, Georgian, Old Uighur, Tibetan and others. Few people can master all of these. Added to this is the problem of transliterating names from a wide variety of scripts, potentially ending up with a plethora of spellings for any given name.
Take Khubilai, for instance. Qubilai, Khubilai, Kublai and Kubla have all been used, and are acceptable depending on which system of transliteration and language one uses. Most scholars have no difficulty keeping track of who is who, but a novice to the history of the Mongol Empire can easily be overwhelmed by the names. Other problems resulting from the variety of languages will be discussed later Yet evidence of the Mongols’ importance to world history is in many ways best demonstrated by the problem of studying the Mongols – where does one begin? Indeed, where does one even place them in Asia? Certainly they were an Asian people and the bulk of the empire existed in Asia, but does Asia include the Middle East? And what of the European domains? The Mongols’ importance to Europe, and by extension to world history, is aptly demonstrated by David Morgan’s classic and still standard introduction to the study of the Mongols, The Mongols (1986).
Indeed, The Mongols is actually a part of Blackwell’s Peoples of Europe series. When I received my first copy of this magnificent book as an undergraduate, I remember being perplexed by this odd placement. After all, a quick glance at any picture of the Mongols makes it quite clear that they were not from Europe. Although Morgan adeptly explains the reasoning for the inclusion of The Mongols, the simple idea that the editors of the series wanted to include the Mongols in the series indicates more than a quirky inclusion or that a Peoples of Asia series did not yet exist (although it does now). The place of The Mongols in the series should tell the reader that despite being quite removed from Europe the extent of the Mongol Empire greatly influenced events in Europe.
The fact of the matter is that the Mongol Empire can be examined as part of Europe, the Middle East, East Asia, central Eurasia and even south Asia. Yet in doing so students and scholars risk missing the forest for the trees. Certainly the empire’s impact on each region has been immense, but ultimately the Mongol Empire was a huge continental entity. Common threads connected these regions and to ignore the fact that events in the Middle East impacted events in the European or East Asian sections leads to an underestimation of the complex reality of the empire. In short, to fully understand the Mongol Empire it must be viewed as a whole. Certainly regional perspectives are useful but until the late thirteenth century the empire was still very much a single entity in a variety of ways even if not politically.
Historiography and Problems
As with any historical field, the historiography of the Mongol Empire has its problems. As mentioned above, the first and foremost issue is the abundant number of languages used in the primary documents. A single scholar could not hope to master all of them, although there are many scholars who know a sizeable number. Most of the earlier scholars on the Mongol Empire did not start with the notion of study of the Mongol Empire as being a part of world history. Yet most scholars of the Mongol Empire began their careers in a different field and slowly but inexorably became Mongolists. A scholar of Islamic history may be trained in Arabic and Persian but is unlikely to learn Chinese or Russian, and a scholar of medieval China is unlikely to learn Armenian or Georgian. Their research is tied to their respective regional fields.
Thus many scholars became regional specialists of a branch of the empire, usually focused on the four divisions of the post- empire: the Empire of the Great Khan or Yuan Empire (being East Asia, including Mongolia and Tibet); the Chaghatayid Khanate (roughly central Asia); the Jochid or Kipchak Khanate, popularly known as the Golden Horde (from the Carpathians in the west into Kazakhstan in the east); the Ilkhanate or Persia (the Middle East from modern Turkey into Afghanistan, but excluding Greater Syria and Arabia). While these scholars did dabble with larger concepts of connecting the empire, much of their work was hampered by lack of access to other documentary evidence due to the lack of linguistic skills. Even today scholars work with the materials in their research languages and then augment them with any available in translation from languages they do not know. Unfortunately what was translated was often fragmentary.
This by no means diminishes the importance of this generation of scholars’ work. Many pieces have become seminal for the study of the Mongol Empire and have led to a better understanding of the post- empire than the empire at its height. The historiography of the study of the Mongol Empire is slowly changing due to the efforts of a number of scholars. A few recent commentaries on the historiography have been published, so I will not review it here. I would, however, like to bring attention to a few works by one author that have been crucial in transforming the Mongol Empire from regional studies to a more holistic approach and placing the empire in the context of world history. Thomas Allsen, arguably the greatest scholar of the Mongol Empire, successfully mastered a number of languages and has approached the empire from a more integrated perspective. His classic work Mongol Imperialism () examined the policies of the fourth Mongol khan, Möngke (r. –), and established how the Mongol administration tied the empire together in a coherent manner. This was followed by Commodity and Exchange in the Mongol Empire (), which demonstrated the importance of Islamic textiles in the economics and court life of the Mongol Empire. Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia () has become a standard work in classes on the Mongol Empire since it illustrates the wide variety of goods and ideas that traversed Eurasia due to Mongol influence. His many articles and other works continue to examine the empire as a complete entity and not from a regional perspective. Allsen’s fourth book, The Royal Hunt in Eurasian History (), while not exclusively on the Mongol Empire, focused on hunting traditions among royal elites. Through this Allsen makes a significant contribution to our understanding of world history. Needless to say, much of the emphasis does rest on the Mongols and how they influenced other areas with their traditions and also their commonalities with other royal elites. A second problem is the issue of Mongolia and its connection to the Mongol Empire. Historically it is connected to the history of East Asia, yet the standard definition of East Asia, as posited by Jonathan K. Fairbank and others, includes heavy Chinese influence, particularly in terms of Confucian political theory and ethics. It is safe to say that Mongolia in all its history, even under Qing domination (–), eluded Confucian ethics and philosophy as a major influence in culture and society. Geographically it is Northeast Asia, but this is a fairly new designation and it is unclear as to what it means beyond geography. Mongolia has also been a satellite of the former Soviet Union, becoming the second communist state in history in . Yet grants, think tanks and so on that are tied to studying the states of the former Soviet Union rarely include Mongolia. Although being tied economically, academically, socially, militarily and politically to the Soviet Union (and then Russia), Mongolia, for a variety of reasons, was never annexed and thus was not part of the Soviet Union. Yet at the same time it is excluded from East Asia. So where does it fit? The terms Inner Asia and central Eurasia perhaps fit it best, but these are vague geographical terms that are difficult to define coherently. Despite all these concerns, the study of the Mongol Empire is world history and vice versa – otherwise one could argue that there would be little impetus for this book. A brief survey of some of the most well-known and used primary sources clearly demonstrates the place of the Mongol Empire in world history. Indeed, the authors of these histories seem to break from a mould of regional chronicles or histories and try to place their concerns in a larger context. Certainly many local or regional sources exist but the major sources do attempt to understand the Mongol Empire in a larger context. A favourite source in world history classes and for the study of the Mongol Empire is The Travels of Marco Polo. It is safe to say that Marco Polo remains the most famous traveller in history, even if Ibn Battuta, the North African judge and traveller, covered more miles, and more people have heard of Marco Polo than have read his book. Still, the famed Venetian travelled throughout the Mongol Empire and beyond, perhaps even to Zanzibar. And even if he did not make it to the latter, he heard and saw more of the world than virtually all of his contem - poraries. So fantastic were his stories that most refused to believe them and, as he lay upon his deathbed, friends and family, perhaps fearing for his soul, urged him to recant. Polo could only reply, ‘I have not told half of what I saw.’ Although many criticisms have been levelled at what Marco Polo did not mention, the majority of scholars read his writings with confidence that there is plenty of evidence that he did indeed go to China and beyond and that what he omits must be considered in the context of his social circles – the Mongol elite. This cannot be overlooked. As Stephen Haw, Peter Jackson, Igor De Rachewiltz and David Morgan all demonstrate, Marco Polo looked at the world from the perspective of a Mongol, or at least as one of their employees. While his status was not quite as great as he hinted at in his writings, he still served the court of the Khubilai Khan and provides plenty of information that was new to Europeans from the perspective of a merchant and government functionary of the Mongol Empire. Other European sources include a few crucial travel accounts from Franciscan monks, John of Plano Carpini and William of Rubruck. Plano Carpini was sent by Pope Innocent iv to gather intelligence on the Mongols shortly after the Mongol invasion of Poland and Hungary. Plano Carpini provides us with an insight into how terrifying the Mongols truly were to those outside the empire, a view of the world from a rather parochial monk – this being his first venture beyond Western Christendom. William of Rubruck arrived at Karakorum during the reign of Möngke Khan. While this also provides a snapshot of the world beyond Christendom, William of Rubruck almost joyfully embraces the experience and tries new things such as drinking kumiss, fermented mare’s milk and the Mongol beverage of choice – which he enjoys – and also engages in religious debates. Moving eastward, there is ‘Ala al-Din Ata Malik Juvaini’s aptly named Ta’rîkh-i-Jahân-Gusha (The History of the World Conqueror). Juvaini, another employee of the Mongol court, this time that of Möngke’s brother, Hülegü, wrote his history in Baghdad. It includes not only histories of the Mongols up to , ending with the destruction of the Ismailis, also popularly called the Assassins, but also histories of the Khwarazmian Empire and the Empire of Kara Khitai, two states absorbed by the Mongols. Having access to key members of the government as well as his father, who also served the Mongols, Juvaini gives us a vivid picture of Mongol court activities. His work is much stronger on events in the Middle East than elsewhere, but there is still a clear effort to show how policy dictated in Mongolia affected southwest Asia. Unfortunately his work stops in and politely ignores the Mongol destruction of Baghdad, where Juvaini later served as the governor. A source completely hostile to the Mongol Empire was written by an individual who not only survived the Mongol onslaught but also wrote his work from the relative safety of the Sultanate of Delhi. As a refugee, Minhaj Siraj Juzjani wrote his history of the Mongols from the perspective of trying to make sense of the Islamic world, particularly the various Muslim dynasties. Nonetheless, a sizeable section of his work is devoted to the Mongols and the implications of their arrival. He also provides additional information on the Mongols in the appropriate section of particular Muslim dynasties that had encounters with them. Another major work, and arguably the most important, is Fazullah Rashid al-Din’s Jami’ al-Tawarikh (Compendium of Chronicles). While Rashid al-Din focuses on the Mongol Empire, his intent was to compile the history of the world and include as many areas as he could. While he ultimately failed in this endeavour, we have a nuanced study of the Mongol Empire that uses long-lost sources and corroborates much of what appears in other sources as well as shedding light on them. Furthermore, it gives us glimpses into how Rashid al-Din and perhaps even the Mongol court viewed regions beyond the pale of their control, such as those of the Franks or Western Europe. This work is now available in translation by William Thackston and has altered, to some extent, how those who worked on the eastern portion of the Mongol Empire view it. Although many other sources also exist in Persian, Arabic sources are of great importance. As the ample bibliography and research of the Mamluk historian Reuven Amitai demonstrates, those Arabic sources emanating from the Mamluk Sultanate yield rich results for the Mongol Empire. This is true not only for the Ilkhanate, the closest Mongol territory to the Mamluks, but also for other regions of the Mongol Empire including the pre-dissolution era. Of particular importance is the work of ibn Fadl Allah, an encyclopaedist who, in his Kitab Masalik al-Absar wa Mamalik al-Amsar, devoted a significant section to the Mongol Empire from the rise of Chinggis Khan to his own era. Other authors include Ahmad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab al-Nuwayri, Muhammad ibn Ahmad alDhahabi, Baybars al-Mansuri and Ahmad ibn ‘Ali al-Maqrizi. Although outsiders, the Mamluk authors provide a glimpse of the Mongol Empire from a hostile yet very engaged and knowledgeable perspective. In addition it is often clear that they not only read their peers, but also the works of authors in the Mongol Empire. While technically not a Mamluk author, Ibn Battuta’s work is invaluable. The scholar from Morocco travelled throughout much of the Islamic world, which by the fourteenth century included all of the Mongol Empire except the territories of the Yuan Empire in East Asia. Nonetheless, Ibn Battuta even ventured there as well as territories neighbouring the Mongols such as the Mamluk Sultanate and the Sultanate of Delhi. Thus in Ibn Battuta we have the rare informant who travelled not only throughout the empire but also served in positions, usually as a qadi or judge, in states hostile to the Mongols. His perspective is unique and valuable. However, as with all sources, one must read Ibn Battuta with caution. As scholar Ross Dunn has demonstrated in his narrative commentary on Ibn Battuta’s travels, there are times when it appears that Ibn Battuta recycled work from previous authors – a frequent occurrence in many medieval sources. Arab authors prior to the rise of the Mamluk Sultanate also remain important sources. Ibn al-Athir, who wrote the mammoth chronicle known as the al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, provides one of the most descriptive images of the Mongol invasion of the Khwarazmian Empire. Although Ibn al-Athir wrote from the safety of Mosul and acquired much of his information from refugees, much of what he wrote is similar to that of the aforementioned Juzjani, his contemporary in Delhi. Indeed, the overwhelming dread conveyed in Ibn al-Athir’s work is pervasive and clearly demonstrates why the Mongols were viewed as a punishment sent by God. While most of the sources are written by individuals working for the Mongols, refugees or observers in hostile, yet distant, states, Muhammad al-Nasawi is different. He was in the employ of the Khwarazmian government, which suffered destruction with the Mongol invasion of . Thus from Nasawi we gain a rich history of the pre-invasion Khwarazmian state, the devastation of the Mongols and life as a refugee while he served as the secretary for the last Khwarazmshah, Jalal al-Din, who attempted to establish a bulwark against the Mongols in the ashes of his father’s empire. Nasawi gives the reader a window to view the rise and fall of one empire while witnessing the ascension of another. At the same time the shortfalls of one who sought to stop the Mongols are revealed. The Eastern sources are of equal importance. The lone extant Mongolian document is The Secret History of the Mongols (c. ), best translated and edited by Igor de Rachewiltz although other translations are also very useful. The Secret History describes the Mongol world up to the reign of Ögödei Khan (r. –) with the majority of the work focused on Chinggis Khan. It can be a difficult text as it was written for a specific audience (the Mongol court and only the Mongol court, hence ‘secret’). As a result many things are not elaborated upon as it was assumed that the reader would understand the nuances and context. The majority of the work focuses on activities in Mongolia and the details become sparse on events taking place outside Mongolia, yet give the reader a clear indication of what the Mongols thought important. Other thirteenth-century Mongolian sources such as the Altan Debter (Golden Book) have vanished, although parts of Mongolian sources appear in Rashid al-Din’s work as well as in Chinese sources such as the Sheng Wu Qin Zheng Lu (The Chronicle of the Holy Warrior), which is concerned with the campaigns of Chinggis Khan. The major Chinese source is the Yuan Shi or History of the Yuan Empire, compiled from Yuan records by the Ming Empire in according to rules of Chinese historiographical tradition established by the great Han historian Sima Qian. While there are pitfalls with this process, the Yuan Shi nonetheless offers a wealth of biographical information in addition to details of campaigns and government. The biographical information is of vast importance since most sources, excluding Rashid al-Din’s Jami’ al-Tawarikh, do not dwell on the lives of most of the figures in the Mongol government, excluding the khans. With , pages of information it is an invaluable source, particularly as the information for the first years of the Mongol Empire extends beyond the Yuan Empire. Unfortunately only bits and pieces have been translated into other languages, although the majority is available in Mongolian along with other Chinese sources. Hopefully by the time this book is in print, that situation will have changed, since a full translation is now in progress. Undoubtedly it will transform how scholars approach the empire in the same way as Thackston’s translation of Rashid al-Din did for non-Persian readers. Just as the Ming compiled the Yuan Shi, the Mongols ordered the compilation of the histories of the empires of China that they conquered. Thus we have the Jin Shi and the Song Shi. These are more regionally focused, but taken as a whole shed light on virtually the whole of East Asia prior to the rise of the Mongols as well as on the Mongol conquest of the Jin, Song and Xi Xia empires. Other sources include the Guang Yu Tu (Extended Map of the Earth), Huihui Yaofang (Muslim Medicinal Recipes) and Yinshan Zhengyao (Proper and Essential Things for the Emperor’s Food and Drink). All are a synthesis of Chinese and Islamic scholarship only made possible by the Mongol Empire. The Guang Yu Tu compiled by Zhu Siben provides detailed geographic information throughout East Asia and then extends beyond Eurasia and as far as west Africa. The Huihui Yaofang, in the process of being translated in Germany, is a medical encyclopedia of Islamic medicine. It is believed that the Mongols preferred Islamic medical care to other forms and that the publication of this work is evidence of the Mongol court’s attempt to promote it. Finally, the Yinshan Zhengyao is an intriguing book of recipes. As will be discussed later, it clearly demonstrated the interconnectedness of the different parts of the Mongol Empire as well as showing us what might be on the menu at the court of the khans. This work has been translated into English with copious notes and a detailed introduction. A number of other Chinese primary sources exist, but they tend to be more regionally or locally focused. The Meng-Da Bei-Lu (Record of the Mongols and Tatars), a travel account written by Zhao Hong, a representative from the Song court during the Mongol invasion of the Jin Empire, gives the view of an enemy of the Jin on an embassy to the Mongols who has a keen eye for the Mongol military and leaves a fascinating account of all facets of the Mongol military machine, including how they trained their horses. Heida Shilue (Brief Account of the Black Tatar) by Peng Daya, a Song emissary, is another travel account that tells us more about the early Mongol invasions. A third source from this period is the Xi Yuji (Record of a Journey to the West) by Li Zhichang, an adept of the Taoist sage Changchun. It is an account of Changchun’s journey from China to Mongolia to Samarqand and Afghanistan. He made the journey after Chinggis Khan summoned him, hoping to find a secret to longevity. The account is remarkable in that not only do we have philosophical discussions with Chinggis Khan but also a unique perspective of the Mongol Empire as it formed in East Asia and Central Asia. The Xi Yuji was translated by Arthur Waley and remains in print. Significant strides have also been made in the secondary material. On the eastern end of the empire, James P. Delgado’s highly readable book, Khubilai Khan’s Lost Fleet, makes a useful contribution to the study of the Mongols’ place in world history. In addition to writing a compelling story of Khubilai Khan’s attempted invasions of Japan, Vietnam and Java via the sea, he demonstrates how these events later influenced the national identities of these regions. David Bade’s Khubilai Khan and the Beautiful Princess of Tumapel is another noteworthy contribution as it is one of the very few studies that deal directly with the Mongol invasion of Java. In addition to scholarly analysis of the actions there, Bade provides translations of several of the Indonesian sources, otherwise rather inaccessible. Ironically, Bade’s book is also rather inaccessible as it was published in Mongolia, although it is in English. Bade’s analysis usefully demonstrates that the Javanese sources do not focus on world conquest or destruction. Indeed, there is no mention of cities being levelled or of the usual massacres that accompany a visit from the Mongols. Rather, the Javanese sources focus on diplomacy, commerce and Khubilai’s attempts to acquire princesses from the kingdoms of Indonesia. As a result, we have sources that provide a different perspective on the Mongols than those of the mainland. While chapter One of this book provides a brief biography of Chinggis Khan, a number of useful biographies exist. Paul Ratchnevsky’s Genghis Khan: His Life and Legacy is still probably the most authoritative and scholarly, but can prove challenging for the uninitiated. The best in terms of general accessibility, which also places Chinggis Khan as a major influence in the Islamic world, is that of Michal Biran. Ruth Dunnell’s Chinggis Khan biography is also quite good, particularly for classroom use due to its concise nature. A number of other works can be found in the bibliography, but these are the three best. Biography has not been a major feature of the Mongol Empire. Indeed, beyond the dozen or so biographies of Chinggis Khan, we have Morris Rossabi’s classic eponymous work on Khubilai Khan as well as his Voyager from Xanadu which discusses the lives of two high-ranking members of the Church of the East (the Nestorians) who travel to Europe as ambassadors. There is also Richard Gabriel’s enthusiastic biography of the general Sübedei. Other biographical information tends to be fragmentary and included in other studies, such as the aforementioned work by Allsen on Möngke. Igor de Rachewiltz, perhaps the foremost authority on the Mongols as evidenced by his book The Secret History of the Mongols, edited Personalities in the Mongol Empire, which provides several short biographies of major figures within the empire ranging from Mongol generals such as Sübedei to non-Mongol administrators such as Sayyid Ajall and Yelü Chucai. Nonetheless much work needs to be done on the leadership of the Mongol Empire – both the Mongol and non-Mongol figures. As indicated at the beginning of this section, this historigraphical study does not address all books dealing with the Mongols or that include the Mongols as an integral part of world history. These can be found in the bibliography. I have also reserved some of my comments on some works for inclusion in chapters where they will be more salient.
Theoretical Concerns
It is easy to get swept up in ‘Mongol mania’ when trying to explain the Mongol impact in world history. One can fall into the trap of tying many things to the Mongols without recognizing other factors. This book will attempt to avoid this pitfall, but only the reader will be able to judge the author’s success. When examining the impact of the Mongol Empire, or any other state, polity or people, one must discern whether a change would have occurred if not for a specific preceding event. Although historians tend to look at the word ‘inevitable’ with disdain, some things besides taxes and death may be so. Thus the discussion will be about things that are directly linked to the Mongols, or what might be indirectly linked to the Mongols but occurred as a ramification of Mongol activity. Yet even then one must be wary of drawing out indirect influences too far. For instance, it would be easy to credit (or damn, depending on the hyperbole of the time) the Mongol Empire for the Bolshevik Revolution. This may seem a bit far-fetched, and it is, but then Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov Lenin did have Kalmyk ancestry. The Kalmyks were Oirat Mongols who migrated to the Volga River in after growing weary of the perpetual internecine fighting among the Oirats. The Oirat Mongols were a powerful Mongol confederation in western Mongolia that did not recognize the Chinggisid principle as the sole legitimizing influence in ruling; that is to say, they did not recognize a khan or prince from the lineage of Chinggis Khan. The Oirat took their name from one of the Forest People around Lake Baikal that submitted to Chinggis Khan in , yet their leadership claimed a lineage from Toghril Ong-Khan, khan of the Kereits whom Chinggis Khan defeated. With the dissolution of the Mongol Empire in –, the unity of the Chinggisid princes declined and allowed other groups to gradually assert their independence.
In the fifteenth century the Oirats gradually became a major force in the area of modern western Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Xinjiang in China. Without the Mongol Empire the Chinggisids would have never come to prominence, and thus no opposition to them would have grown, and thus no Oirats. Therefore they could not have had a civil war that would cause one faction to move west to the Volga in frustration, and thus no ancestry for Lenin, and perhaps no Lenin, resulting in no Bolshevik Revolution and all that it entails. This argument, years ago, would have also associated Lenin’s callousness to his Mongol heritage, overlooking that every society has a mean streak, but it had been fashionable to blame all bad things in Russia on the Mongols for centuries. Indeed, alcoholism in Russia has been attributed to the Mongols by some scientists. Of course we could draw this exercise out further. With the creation of the Soviet Union we ultimately have the Mongol Empire creating the Cold War, influencing the election of John F. Kennedy and bringing about his assassination.
The creation of the Soviet Union and its dominance of much of the former Mongol Empire leads us to the Soviet–Afghan War, which included the involvement of many offshoots of the Mongols such as the Uzbeks. The collapse of the Soviet Union led to the hegemony of the United States and a desire for a new ‘enemy’, which was found in radical Islam, leading to the Taliban, the events of / and the us invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. Thus one could argue that the Mongols caused the tragedy of /. In so doing, we could prove that history is indeed circular rather that teleological, as Mongolian troops have served in the so-called ‘Coalition of the Willing’ in both Afghanistan and Iraq – perhaps as a vanguard for a new Mongol Empire if one wanted to take a conspiracy theory perspective.
It is simple enough to make this case and perhaps also the case that the Mongols, with their adoption of new musical styles and the Pax Mongolica allowing new musical instruments, tastes and fashions to spread, are responsible for one of the greatest scourges of humanity – disco. With their love of drink and gold embroidered cloth or nasij, one could easily envision a disco ball hanging from the ceiling in Karakorum. And, indeed, one German group from the disco era not only named themselves after Chinggis Khan (Dschinggis Khan as the Germans spell it), but had a member of the band pose as Chinggis Khan as well as having two hit singles based on a Chinggis Khan theme, one of which almost carried them to Eurovision glory in . The preceding paragraph is, of course, an exercise in absurdity. The point is that one may indeed link tangential events back to one event, however, to do so ignores other mitigating actions such as the First World War, European colonialism and imperialism, the success of abba and Donna Summer, and the unexpected creation of polyester.
Indeed, the linking of Lenin to Chinggis Khan is speculation best left for discussion after a few drinks and not for serious discussion in a scholarly book, but it is exactly the type of pitfall that the author will hopefully avoid, as well as subtler ones. In essence, while I contend the Mongols have been highly influential and perhaps set the stage for the modern world, they were not the only factor. I will, however, demonstrate that the conquests that created the Mongol Empire must be seen as a key and direct cause for monumental historical changes in world history. They served not only as a catalyst for change, but also were not a regressive force that set back progress in various parts of the world. This is a claim often made in nationalist histories, for instance the myth of the Mongol Yoke that prevented Russia from advancing at the same pace as Western Europe. The Mongol conquests have also been used as an excuse in the Middle East and China. Furthermore, many of the advances that occurred could not or would not have happened without the Mongol conquests.
The conquests served as a catalyst in many ways that will be explored throughout the chapters of this book, however they served most obviously and directly by simply altering the map of the world. More than twenty states disappeared by the end of the conquests: Xi Xia, the Jin Empire, Song Empire, Kara Khitai, Khwarazmian Empire, the Ismaili Kingdom, the Abbasid Caliphate, the Seljuks of Rum, the Ayyubid Kingdom of Damascus and Aleppo, Vladimir-Suzdal, the Kipchak confederacy, the Kereit Khanate, the Naiman confederacy and, of course, the Tatars of Mongolia are but a sample of independent principalities, kingdoms, khanates and sultanates that vanished after the collapse of the Mongol Empire. Within a span of years the map of Eurasia had irrevocably changed. Part One of this book will examine the conquests and their immediate and long-term ramifications on the political geography of Eurasia as well as provide a contextual framework for Part Two, the Chinggis Exchange.
Christopher Columbus, Heinz Guderian, the Dalai Lama, William Shakespeare and John Wayne. A seemingly diverse and unconnected list of names, yet they all have something in common. In one way or another they are intimately connected to Chinggis Khan and are thus part of what might be termed the Chinggis Exchange. Just as Columbus’s ‘discovery’ of, or rather accidental landing in, the New World transformed multiple societies through the direct and indirect exchange of New World and Old World animals, plants, germs and culture known as the Columbian Exchange (a term coined by Alfred Crosby), the Mongol conquests and empire caused a perceivable shift in technology, ideas, culture, religion, warfare and many other areas.
The Columbian Exchange is, in many ways, a carry-over of the Chinggis Exchange, yet at the same time remains quite separate. The Chinggis Exchange is not simply an extension of the syllogism of the Mongols and the Bolshevik Revolution posed above. Indeed, Part Two is an effort to avoid that syllogism, yet at the same time it is hoped that at the end it will be clear that the Mongol impact on world history is undeniable and enormous. So why the Chinggis Exchange? Well, for one it is a bit more pithy than ‘The Mongol Impact on world history’, but most importantly it conveys the idea of ‘The Mongol Impact on World History’. Without the rise of Chinggis Khan it is very unlikely that the Mongol Empire and its resulting impact would have happened.
While it is not trendy to consider the ‘Great Man’ idea in scholarship, one must remain open to the idea that there are sometimes truly great men or women who dramatically transform the world or at least set history on a path that it otherwise would not have taken. While it is true that every individual is a product of his or her era and society, at times there are those who have the vision or ability to transcend it. This certainly should not be misconstrued as a view that Chinggis Khan planned the entire thing. Indeed, I am not convinced that Chinggis Khan even wanted an empire, but rather that he would have been quite content ruling Mongolia. His accomplishments, however, are what inspired others and set forces in motion that could not be reversed. Thus even after the dissolution of the Mongol Empire roughly . million sq km ( million sq miles) were ruled by his descendants and neighbouring states had to engage in some form of relations with those descendants.
For decades and even centuries after Chinggis Khan’s death, his shadow loomed over his former empire and well beyond. If one considers the world prior to the Mongol Empire and the post-empire period, it is clear that it was vastly different and considerably more interconnected. While it is often said that the Mongols ushered in globalism, one should approach this with a bit more restraint. Indeed, while the Mongols set the conditions and served as facilitators, most of the Chinggis Exchange was the result of the efforts of the subjects of the Mongols and outsiders. Nonetheless, one should not discount direct Mongol action in the Chinggis Exchange, as Part Two will demonstrate.
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