Here are 80 books that The Mongol Empire fans have personally recommended if you like
The Mongol Empire.
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I am an associate professor at Nottingham Trent University and my interest in the Mongols first began many years ago during my MA at Royal Holloway University. I had always been interested in the historic relationships between nomadic and agricultural societies, but what I found fascinating about the Mongols was the sheer speed and range of their expansion—how could they have conquered the greater part of the Asia within only a few decades? Exploring how the Mongols grappled with the realities of ruling such a vast imperium remains a very thought-provoking issue, so too is the question of how the peoples they overthrew accommodated themselves to Mongol rule.
During the thirteenth century the Mongols advanced on many frontiers, their forces conquering China, much of the Near East, and even crossing the Indus River. One of their most substantial wars of conquest however was in north-western Eurasia where their armies covered enormous distances, ultimately reaching lands as distant as Poland and Hungary. In time, as the Mongol Empire broke apart, this region became a powerful empire in its own right, often referred to by historians as the “Golden Horde,” or in this case “The Horde”. In this book Marie Favereau provides a compelling history of this empire covering its origins, its development and its later history. This account is all the more significant because the Horde has actually received far less attention from scholars than the Mongols’ other territories.
2021 Cundill History Prize Finalist A Financial Times Best Book of the Year A Spectator Best Book of the Year A Five Books Best Book of the Year
"Outstanding, original, and revolutionary. Favereau subjects the Mongols to a much-needed re-evaluation, showing how they were able not only to conquer but to control a vast empire. A remarkable book." -Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads
The Mongols are widely known for one thing: conquest. In the first comprehensive history of the Horde, the western portion of the Mongol empire that arose after the death of Chinggis Khan, Marie Favereau shows…
I am an associate professor at Nottingham Trent University and my interest in the Mongols first began many years ago during my MA at Royal Holloway University. I had always been interested in the historic relationships between nomadic and agricultural societies, but what I found fascinating about the Mongols was the sheer speed and range of their expansion—how could they have conquered the greater part of the Asia within only a few decades? Exploring how the Mongols grappled with the realities of ruling such a vast imperium remains a very thought-provoking issue, so too is the question of how the peoples they overthrew accommodated themselves to Mongol rule.
The Mongols only form one part of Nomads in the Middle East which paints on a far broader canvas, looking at the long-term history of relations between nomads and agricultural societies in the Middle East. Spanning from the seventh century all the way up to the modern era, and discussing peoples as diverse as the Bedouin, the Seljuk Turks, and of course the Mongols, Beatrice Forbes Manz provides an incredible overview of the role played by nomadic societies in shaping this region. For those interested in the Mongols, this book helps us to take a step back and a take panoramic view of their actions within a much longer timeline.
A history of pastoral nomads in the Islamic Middle East from the rise of Islam, through the middle periods when Mongols and Turks ruled most of the region, to the decline of nomadism in the twentieth century. Offering a vivid insight into the impact of nomads on the politics, culture, and ideology of the region, Beatrice Forbes Manz examines and challenges existing perceptions of these nomads, including the popular cyclical model of nomad-settled interaction developed by Ibn Khaldun. Looking at both the Arab Bedouin and the nomads from the Eurasian steppe, Manz demonstrates the significance of Bedouin and Turco-Mongolian contributions…
I am an associate professor at Nottingham Trent University and my interest in the Mongols first began many years ago during my MA at Royal Holloway University. I had always been interested in the historic relationships between nomadic and agricultural societies, but what I found fascinating about the Mongols was the sheer speed and range of their expansion—how could they have conquered the greater part of the Asia within only a few decades? Exploring how the Mongols grappled with the realities of ruling such a vast imperium remains a very thought-provoking issue, so too is the question of how the peoples they overthrew accommodated themselves to Mongol rule.
As the Mongol Empire expanded it seized control over many different regions, peoples, and religious communities. Among these were many Islamic societies, especially in the Near East. In this remarkable piece of scholarship Peter Jackson examines the nature of Mongol rule in the Near East providing analysis on topics such as: how the onset of Mongol rule influenced the region’s trade, how the Mongols treated the Muslim peoples under their control, and also why the Mongols in the Near East themselves ultimately converted to Islam.
An epic historical consideration of the Mongol conquest of Western Asia and the spread of Islam during the years of non-Muslim rule
The Mongol conquest of the Islamic world began in the early thirteenth century when Genghis Khan and his warriors overran Central Asia and devastated much of Iran. Distinguished historian Peter Jackson offers a fresh and fascinating consideration of the years of infidel Mongol rule in Western Asia, drawing from an impressive array of primary sources as well as modern studies to demonstrate how Islam not only survived the savagery of the conquest, but spread throughout the empire.
I am an associate professor at Nottingham Trent University and my interest in the Mongols first began many years ago during my MA at Royal Holloway University. I had always been interested in the historic relationships between nomadic and agricultural societies, but what I found fascinating about the Mongols was the sheer speed and range of their expansion—how could they have conquered the greater part of the Asia within only a few decades? Exploring how the Mongols grappled with the realities of ruling such a vast imperium remains a very thought-provoking issue, so too is the question of how the peoples they overthrew accommodated themselves to Mongol rule.
The governance and administration of the Mongol Empire was an unimaginably complex exercise. Faced with endless factional rivalries as well as the need to erect and enforce the empire’s authority over a vast span of territory, the challenge of ruling the empire was truly formidable. In Women and the Making of the Mongol Empire, Anne Broadbridge examines the central role played by leading women in shaping Mongol society and its armies, thereby drawing out the sinews of power driving this vast imperium.
How did women contribute to the rise of the Mongol Empire while Mongol men were conquering Eurasia? This book positions women in their rightful place in the otherwise well-known story of Chinggis Khan (commonly known as Genghis Khan) and his conquests and empire. Examining the best known women of Mongol society, such as Chinggis Khan's mother, Hoe'elun, and senior wife, Boerte, as well as those who were less famous but equally influential, including his daughters and his conquered wives, we see the systematic and essential participation of women in empire, politics and war. Anne F. Broadbridge also proposes a new…
Robin Cherry is a Cleveland-raised, Hudson Valley-based author of Garlic: An Edible Biography and Catalog: An Illustrated History of Mail Order Shopping. When not zeroing in on the microhistory of unusual things, she writes about food, wine, and travel. Her father’s family hails from Moldova which may explain why two of the five books on this list are about, or include, chapters on, Moldova. The fact that two concern Mongolia is inexplicable as she’s never been there. Her story on visiting Moldova was included in Lonely Planet’s 2016 Travel Anthology.
As a child, Irish author Stewart dreamed of riding a horse across Mongolia and this book is the fulfillment of his dream. In the heart of the book, Stewart travels 1,000-miles across the vast steppes of Mongolia on horseback. He encounters stunning scenery, a hilarious nomad wedding brawl, and “a vast medieval world of nomads apparently undisturbed since 1200.” This book is worth it just for my favorite exchange. While Stewart was watching the wrestling competition at Mongolia’s annual Naadam Festival, he asked a fellow observer why the wrestler’s jackets had “long sleeves but an open front that left the chest bare.” “Keeps the women out,” he muttered. Turns out Mongolian women are fearsome wrestlers.
Vivid, hilarious, and compelling, this eagerly awaited book takes its place among the travel classics. It is a thrilling tale of adventure, a comic masterpiece, and an evocative portrait of a medieval land marooned in the modern world. Eight and a half centuries ago, under Genghis Khan, the Mongols burst forth from Central Asia in a series of spectacular conquests that took them from the Danube to the Yellow Sea. Their empire was seen as the final triumph of the nomadic "barbarians." In this remarkable book Stanley Stewart sets off on a pilgrimage across the old empire, from Istanbul to…
Since discovering the myths and legends of the world at college, I’ve fallen in love with these and the countries and cities where they originated. Teaching the literature that evolved from this for so many years deepened my fascination with the ancient/medieval worlds. I literally pounce on any books I come across, fiction and non-fiction. All of my novels draw from these worlds and are a thrill to write and read. However, life was extremely hard back then, and I wouldn’t want to have lived back then! I hope you join me in exploring these fascinating reads.
Why did I choose this book? It was the cover with the camels being led across the desert at sunrise. I’m a sucker for deserts and camels! Then it was the title The Sky Worshipers. How fascinating. Add to that the fact that I knew nothing of the Mongols and you have it all. And to learn that the story was fictionalized from actual diaries of Mongol princesses?! Get ready for a fascinating read albeit at times horrifying and moving.
The Sky Worshippers: Women Who Change The Trajectory And Strength Of Genghis Khan And His Mongol Empire.
"An epic novel that pulls back the veil on the tumultuous life and times of Genghis Khan, the Mongol leader who was intent upon becoming the ruler of the world. Breathtaking in scope, honest and raw, The Sky Worshipers reveals life in the orbit of the conquerors." –Kristine Morris, Foreword Reviews
★★★★★ The story, told in three parts, is expertly written. It’s the stuff of my childhood dreams; princesses, warriors, Marco Polo, the Silk Road.
I am a Professor Emeritus of Classical and Byzantine History, and I was fascinated by Attila and the Hun and Genghis Khan from early childhood when I decided that I would become a historian. I set out to write the history of the Eurasian nomads from their perspective, and so convey their neglected history to a wider readership.
This fast-paced, wide-ranging history of Genghis Khan and his successors is by an author with first-hand experience of living among the nomads of the Eurasian steppes.
This work is the best introduction for the general reader on the role of Genghis Khan as a conqueror and ruler as well as the impact of the Mongols on shaping the modern world.
The name Genghis Khan often conjures the image of a relentless, bloodthirsty barbarian on horseback leading a ruthless band of nomadic warriors in the looting of the civilized world. But the surprising truth is that Genghis Khan was a visionary leader whose conquests joined backward Europe with the flourishing cultures of Asia to trigger a global awakening, an unprecedented explosion of technologies, trade, and ideas. In Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford, the only Western scholar ever to be allowed into the Mongols’ “Great Taboo”—Genghis Khan’s homeland and forbidden burial site—tracks the astonishing story of…
I've been writing about and teaching military history for many years (I'm a professor at the University of North Carolina), mostly focused on the pre-industrial world, and mostly about the maelstrom of the North Atlantic colonial experience (including warfare in Ireland, England, and in North America). I quickly decided that I needed to do more to understand the Native American perspective, and that also meant understanding the very nature of their societies: Not just how they fought, but how they imagined the function of war. This book is the product of constantly returning to that problem, while also putting it into a world comparative context of other non-state experiences of war.
Overall, my list focuses on books that deal with warfare by non-states in the pre-modern world.
The nomads of the Eurasian steppe are a primary example of such warring peoples, even as they fought in a world filled with states. The "Secret History" was composed by the Mongols, after their rise to imperial power, but it was about their pre-imperial wars with each other and with similar nomads.
It showcases the values, motives, and methods of pre-imperial Mongols. It is a fascinating insight into how they viewed their place in the world and the role of war in it. There are a number of reasonable translations, this one is readily available.
Recounts the genealogy and life of Genghis Khan, stories of his ancestors, the rise of the Mongol Empire, and the culture and customs of thirteenth-century Mongolia
I am a Professor Emeritus of Classical and Byzantine History, and I was fascinated by Attila and the Hun and Genghis Khan from early childhood when I decided that I would become a historian. I set out to write the history of the Eurasian nomads from their perspective, and so convey their neglected history to a wider readership.
This is the fundamental, well written work for the relationship between imperial China and the nomadic peoples.
I am impressed how Barefield perceptively analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of successive nomadic confederations from the Xiongnu down to the Mongols.
He argues convincingly, in my opinion, that often the Chinese Empire and the nomadic confederation often depended upon each other economically and militarily as is well seen in the alliance between later Tang emperors and the Uyghur Khans in the eighth and early ninth centuries.
Around 800 BC, the Eurasian steppe underwent a profound cultural transformation that was to shape world history for the next 2,500 years: the nomadic herdsmen of Inner Asia invented cavalry which, with the use of the compound bow, gave them the means to terrorize first their neighbors and ultimately, under Chingis Khan and his descendants, the whole of Asia and Europe. Why and how they did so and to what effect are the themes of this history of the nomadic tribes of Inner Asia - the Mongols, Turks, Uighurs and others, collectively dubbed the Barbarians by the Chinese and the…
I'm a retired historian of early Islam and writer of historical fiction set in medieval Iraq, Turkic, and Persian lands. I write and love to read novels that “do history.” In other words, historical fiction that unravels the tangles of history through the lives of its characters, especially when told from the perspectives of those upon whom elite power is wielded. My selections are written by authors who speak from an informed position, either as academic or lay historians, those with a stake in that history, or, like me, both, and include major press, small press, and self-published works and represent the histories of West Africa, Europe, Central and West Asia, and South Asia.
The magnificence
of the first in the Amalgant series is the immersive
reconstruction of Mongol social, political, and religious worlds, as well as the
lives of its people. Hammond resistantly reads histories produced by hostile
cultures, instead privileging the earliest and most comprehensive Mongol
tellings of their own lives, The
Secret History of the Mongols. This is no dry historical account of
cultural norms, steppe relations, or material artifacts, but an intimate and
humane telling of the personal tragedies and struggles that would change the
world as the war-orphaned Temujin grows to be the man we know as Chenggiz Khan.
Mother Hoelun was never ashamed or embarrassed by their hardships. When Jochi wore a dog’s pelt for a cloak, because they had no fleeces and no felt and had to trade for hides and dog was cheap, none of the children felt a sense of indignity. Indignity was alien to her.The Mongols are a people of orphans. A disastrous battle with China has left wives without husbands, children without fathers. Temujin is one of these children, impoverished by the heavy tribute China has punished them with, in danger of forgetting what a Mongol stands for. Worse, Temujin's the subject of…
