The most recommended Genghis Khan books

Imagining different cities from different viewpoints in history is the focus of Calvino’s wonderful set of vignettes between Marco Polo from his 13th-century travelogue and Kublai Kahn as they explore different ways they see cities that lie along the Silk Road. Weaving fact into fiction, they point up the essential logic of how cities are formed and how they evolve. What we remember, how we perceive these memories, and the size and shape of cities are all ideas which is the canvas on which Calvino describes the many cities of our imagination.

This is a wonderful set of stories–you can dip into them and read them if you are on the subway or waiting in the dentist's surgery or anywhere where you get a free moment. The stories are memorable.

Do we really need another book of world history? Yes, We needed this one.

Montefiore tells the story of human society through a number of carefully selected families and their relationships, thereby connecting the intimate with the geopolitical, trivia with statesman craft, family with empire.

The author is an excellent storyteller and a reliable witness. He comes across as someone you would want to share a cognac with by the fireplace. Naturally, he tells stories that had to be left out of the book. 

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.

A controversial author who I discovered in my twenties; I lapped up his non-fictional work.

This book is an in-depth investigation into the dark side of the human psyche. Wilson explores the psychology and history of criminality and violence, concluding with how that is manifested in what was then his ‘present day’.

Although first published in 1984, nearly forty years on his work is still pertinent. For me that stimulates many questions. Having just pulled it from my bookshelf, I think it is time I read it again.

Wilson covers his subject with focused attention and easy-to-understand detail. He encourages the reader to think about human existence from many perspectives. 

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.

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. 

What William Dalrymple is to India, Philip Marsden is to Ethiopia. They are both inspired travel writers and scholarly historians. What I particularly loved about The Barefoot Emperor was that it actually reads like a page-turning thriller. Central to the story is the towering figure of the Emperor Tewedros, a brilliant military commander, political reformer, and charismatic leader, who was both loved and loathed by the warring factions that made up his kingdom. His rise and fall compare with anything achieved by Julius Ceasar or Genghis Khan, and Marsden captures his incredible, true-life story with bravura writing that leaps off the page. He turns a searing searchlight onto one of the most forgotten episodes in African history and captures it all with a breathtaking sense of spirit of place.        

Conn Iggulden is no stranger to historical battle fiction. Like others on this list, at least a dozen other novels could have been selected in this spot. Yet, Lords of the Bow expresses a savage bleakness in Genghis Khan’s earliest campaigns against the Xi Xia and Jin that will linger in the mind of any reader.

Mr. Iggulden’s writing regarding the Battle of Badger’s Mouth is incredible – not only for the complexities of the Mongol-Jin battle but equally due to Mr. Iggulden’s use of terrain and weather to raise tension. The battle is brief on the page, and overtaken by the extensive preparations of the Mongol and Jin armies immediately prior to combat, yet Badger’s Mouth leaves a distinct impression in a vast and growing sea of military historical fiction.

As a child, I have read many of Jin Yong’s wuxia novels and watched all the big- and small-screen adaptations growing up. Those stories are in my DNA. Jin Yong is hailed as “China’s Tolkien” and is a legendary wuxia fiction icon. 

A Hero Born is a translated first volume (of four) of Legends of the Condor Heroes. It was a totally exhilarating reread for me with its immersive plot and complex variety of imaginative martial techniques. The fight scenes were cinematic, the background history compelling, and the characterization of the lead couple most endearing.

Through other rereads in recent years, I fell in love with wuxia fiction all over again. Legends of the Condor Heroes will always be a favorite of mine.

Jin Yong’s characters move in the gritty village lanes or wander China’s remote mountains, seeking vengeance, escaping persecution, forming alliances. The launch of a martial arts series, A Hero Born was first serialized in a Hong Kong newspaper in the 1950s and is about a young hero who ends up in the Mongol camp of the future Genghis Khan. It’s a thrilling read and proved an immediate sensation, spawning movies, video games, comic books, etc.  Holmgren’s new translation offers a window into the gallant world of martial men and women who will fight to the death to defend their honor. It also gives a Chinese perspective on the rise of the Mongols.