Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

Updated on Nov 13, 2023

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Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World (2004) is a history book written by Jack Weatherford, Dewitt Wallace Professor of Anthropology at Macalester College. It is a narrative of the rise and influence of Genghis Khan and his successors, and their influence on European civilization. Weatherford provides a different slant on Genghis Khan than has been typical in most Western accounts, attributing positive cultural effects to his rule.

In the last section, he reviews the historiography of Genghis Khan in the West and argues that the leader's early portrayal in writings as an "excellent, noble king" changed to that of a brutal pagan during the Age of Enlightenment. Weatherford made use of three major non-Western sources: The Secret History of the Mongols, the Ta' rīkh-i jahān-gushā of Juvayni and the Jami al-Tawarikh of Rashid-al-Din Hamadani.

Background

In 1979 Paul Ratchnevsky wrote about the Khan's knack for forging alliances, his fairness in dividing the spoils, and his patronage of the sciences. Similarly, Saunders and H. H. Howorth have argued that the Mongol empire contributed to opening up intellectual interactions between China, the Middle East, and Europe.

The book suggests that the western depiction of the Mongols as savages who destroyed civilization was due to the Mongols' approach to dealing with the competing leadership classes. The Mongols practiced killing the ruling classes in order to subdue the general population, a technique used by other cultures as well. Survivors of the upper classes wrote the histories and expressed resentment of Mongol brutality toward them. Weatherford explores the Mongol treatment of the general population (peasants, tradesmen, merchants) under Mongol rule. He suggests their rule was less burdensome than that of European nobility due to lighter taxes, tolerance of local customs and religions, more rational administration, and universal education for boys.

These benefits were enjoyed only by populations who surrendered immediately to the Mongol invaders. Those populations that resisted could be massacred as a warning to other towns/cities. These massacres were a method of psychological warfare to alert those populations not yet conquered. The resulting terror helped color the historical portrayal of the Mongols.

Since the Mongols were nomadic horsemen of the steppes, they were dependent on taxes from the subjugated peoples for wealth and luxury goods. Weatherford's book claims that the Mongols sought to increase that wealth by encouraging their subjects to be more productive and enterprising instead of increasing the tax burden on them. They did this by sponsoring lucrative international trade. He says that they encouraged scientific advances, and improved agriculture and production methods. Many innovations came from the combination of technologies from different cultures within their huge empire.

Legacy

Weatherford explores Genghis Khan's legacy and influence; he attributes many aspects of the Renaissance, such as the spread of paper and printing, the compass, gunpowder and musical instruments such as the violin, to the influence of trade enabled by Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire. Weatherford suggests that the European Renaissance was a rebirth, not of Greece or Rome, but of concepts from the Mongol Empire. He notes the following:

Astronomy: "New knowledge from the travel writings of Marco Polo to the detailed star charts of Ulugh Beg proved that much of [the Western] received classical knowledge was simply wrong." p. 236

Paper money: experiments in Persian Il-Khanate (p. 204-5), also p. 236

Art: The Franciscans, who had wide contacts with the Mongol court, and Mongol/Persian art influenced Giotto di Bondone and his disciples, so much so that St. Francis was depicted in Mongol dress - "literally wrapped in silk". Also, in a 1306 illustration of the Robe of Christ in Padua, the golden trim was painted in Mongol letters from the square Phagspa script commissioned by Khublai Khan (p. 237-8)

Democracy and Government: Suggests that some of Kublai Khan's reforms in China, which localized power and gave political strength to individual farms, was the first democratic experience in China. It was revived only when the Republicans and Communists began to reintroduce local government. The author also suggests that the tribal government of the Mongols had many democratic elements. He refers to Mongol leaders being selected by council (khuriltai) as "elections", although, these like the Athenian or Roman versions (or early United States election of senators by state legislatures), may be more properly called election by an elite (an oligarchy). In addition, he repeatedly declares that the Khans ruled through the will of the people.

Weatherford argues that the Mongol Empire was the impetus for the European Age of Discovery. Europeans two centuries later were trying to reclaim the lucrative global trade that was lost when the Mongol Empire collapsed.

Weatherford attributes the following to Genghis Khan's rule:

Unprecedented religious tolerance

Low level of discrimination toward other races

Low level of meddling with local customs and culture

The idea of rule by consensus within Mongol tribes

Culture of meritocracy

Culture that believed in the rule of law

Strong sponsorship of Eurasian trade

Building of roads to support trade

First culture to promote universal literacy

First international postal system

First widespread use of paper money

Reduction of the use of torture in the penal system

Belief in diplomatic immunity for ambassadors/envoys

Reception

In a 2005 review, Timothy May wrote that some of Weatherford's thesis was "without question, controversial. Many would scoff at the notion that a horde of illiterate nomads from Mongolia created the Renaissance. There is something to be said about Weatherford's view"... "presents his case very eloquently and with an abundance of evidence demonstrating not only the indirect influence of the Mongols in Europe but also the transformation of the Mongols from agents of innovation in the Renaissance into agents of destruction in the European mind during Enlightenment." He notes that the book lacks footnotes, and notations in the back are hard to follow and lacking in many cases. In addition, he writes, "While the overall thrust of the book is on target and may promote new discourse on the influence of the Mongols in history, it is undermined by numerous mistakes." He recommended against its use in history classes.

In another review, Timothy May concluded that the book is well written, in the sense of engaging, despite some errors.

Kirkus Reviews wrote: "Weatherford’s lively analysis restores the Mongol’s reputation, and it takes wonderful learned detours. . . . Well written and full of surprises.” The Washington Post also approached it as a book for popular audiences, writing, “Reads like the Iliad. Part travelogue, part epic narrative.”

The book stayed on the New York Times Bestseller List for two weeks in 2004. In a tournament of audiobooks by Audible.com, the book was honored in 2011 as a champion, together with Karl Marlantes' Matterhorn. It was the book of the week by CNN in 2011.

On 12 October 2014, the book ranked at 6 on the New York Times e-book bestseller list.

Historiography

Chapter 10 of the book traces the record on Genghis Khan in European texts. In the early years, certain writers appear impressed with him. In the following centuries, Genghis was characterized as a barbarian. In addition, scientists claimed the oriental race was biologically inferior to Europeans.

Adulation

During the late Mongol Empire, most European nations had established different degrees of trade relations with it. Weatherford writes that Europeans at this time portrayed the Mongols positively. For instance, Mongol envoys such as Rabban Bar Sawma, (p. 218-219) were received by the crowned heads of Europe. Weatherford refers to the writings of Bar Sawma to document his surprise at the lack of religious freedom in Europe; the Mongol Empire tolerated a heterogeneity.

Geoffrey Chaucer, who had travelled widely in Europe, writing in the "Tale of the Squire", Canterbury Tales (14th century), said: "This noble king was known as Cambinskan / noble king of great renown / That there was nowhere in the wide world known / So excellent a lord in everything". Chaucer's basis for evaluating the Khan can be challenged since the poem states that the great ruler resided in Old Sarai, which was not under Mongolian control in Genghis Khan's day, was not called Old Sarai at the time, and was situated in Russia, which Genghis Khan never visited.

Denigration

Weatherford suggests that the view of Genghis Khan changed during the 18th century among Enlightenment authors:

Whereas the Renaissance writers and explorers treated Genghis Khan and the Mongols with open adulation, the eighteenth century Enlightenment in Europe produced a growing anti-Asian spirit that often focused on the Mongols, in particular, as the symbol of everything evil or defective... 254

He notes that Montesquieu wrote of the Mongols that, having "destroyed Asia, from India even to the Mediterranean; and all the country which forms the east of Persia they have rendered a desert." (The spirit of the Laws, 1748)

Voltaire, in adapting a Mongol dynasty play as an allegory on the present French king, described the Mongols as "wild sons of rapine, who live in tents, in chariots, and in the fields." They "detest our arts, our customs, and our laws; and therefore mean to change them all; to make this splendid seat of empire one vast desert, like their own."

The widely influential French naturalist Comte de Buffon, in his encyclopedia of natural history, disparaged the Mongol physique, and described the people as "alike strangers to religion, morality, and decency. They are robbers by profession." Translated from French into many European languages, his work became one of the classic sources of information during the 18th and 19th centuries.

The Scottish scientist Robert Chambers wrote:

The leading characters of the various races of mankind are simply representatives of particular stages in the development of the highest or Caucasian type. ... [in comparison, the] Mongolian is an arrested infant newly born.

People suffering what is now known as Down's syndrome, which can cause mental retardation, were characterized as having physical facial features like Mongols, and were described as "arrested children".

Re-evaluation

One of the first to re-evaluate Genghis Khan was the Indian statesman Jawaharlal Nehru. In a series of letters on world history written to his daughter from British jails in the 1930s, he wrote "Chengiz is, without doubt, the greatest military genius and leader in history.... Alexander and Caesar seem petty before him."

In 2005, Peter Jackson published The Mongols and the West, 1221–1410, an academic work on the Catholic West and the Mongol Empire in the Middle Ages. Antti Ruotsala, a reviewer, noted that most re-evaluation of the Mongols up to that time had been done by German scholars, whose work was not widely available in the West.

Criticism

Other historians took issue with some of Weatherford's assertions. For instance, he refers to the thousands of women taken as sex slaves by the Mongols as "wives", and to the thousands of male slaves as "servants", thereby glossing over a grim aspect of the Mongolian campaigns.

The silver tree constructed in Karakorum by a French artisan who had the misfortune to be in Belgrade when the Mongols captured it is declared to be a great marvel. However, such toys were popular at courts all over Europe.

According to Weatherford, during William of Rubruck's visit to Mangu's court, William and the Nestorian Christians allied with the Muslims in an attempt to refute claims by the Buddhist clerics. William had written that he despised the local variant of Christianity, which was heavily infused with what he calls "the Manichaean heresy"; he regarded the Muslims as the only true monotheists beside himself. Weatherford's claim that the Christian clerics started to sing hymns because they had become drunk is not borne out by William's account.

The book claims that the Nestorian Monk Rabban Bar Sawma, who made a pilgrimage from Kublai Khan's capital to Jerusalem in the Ilkhanate, was then, in 1287, "sent by his superiors" to the courts of Europe to offer a peaceful alliance between the Mongols and the Europeans. That is not supported by the only known narrative of his mission, which Weatherford cites. Rabban Bar Sawma was asked by the Ilkhan Arghun to offer the Christian monarchs a war alliance against the Mamluk Sultans of Egypt, but the Christian monarchs were not interested. Their lack of enthusiasm became the more pronounced since the Mamluks had in 1262-63 secured an alliance with the Golden Horde in Russia. This was a Mongol principality ruled by the descendants of one of Genghis Khan's sons. They had become enemies of Ilkhanate. The Europeans vividly remembered the previous Mongolian invasion of Europe and did not desire a repeat. By the middle of the 13th century, Europeans were aware of the Mongolian strategy of making alliances with distant peoples, against peoples nearby. After defeating the close enemy, they would turn on their former allies.

References

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World Wikipedia

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