Customer Reviews

The Mongol Art of War

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This is a readable and well-researched book. It moves fast and is rich with facts. I even enjoyed reading the chapter notes in the back.

"The Mongol Art of War" covers the years 1185-1265 and the leaders Chinggis (Genghis) Kahn through Khubilai (Kubla) Kahn. In all it took the empire only 80 years to conquer a vast range from Mongolia and China in the East to Russia and Persia in the West. Along the way the Mongols mastered the art of Steppe warfare including discipline and logistics, and showed a willingness to adapt and learn from their enemies including how to conduct siege warfare. The book includes a thought provoking discussion of similarity of Mongolian war tactics with war tactics in World War II especially Blitzkrieg.

Timothy May's passion for the Mongol war machine makes the book factual and fast-paced. He tells the 'bottom line' of Mongol rise and expansion in the first chapter, then explains the details of how they did it in the remaining eight.

This history is a surprising illustration that turns the tables on thinking of Mongols as uneducated barbarians. They had the ability to master themselves and logistics, and then to further learn and adapt from their campaign experiences. They were masters of communication, espionage and (where needed) deceit. These were some of the real reasons behind their empire's success.

I find it thought provoking to wonder at the end of the book: What would it have taken for Chinggis to assure continuity of his empire through time (past his lineage's death) in the same manner that he mastered its continuity in space (breadth). May's book rekindles interest and awareness of the contribution of the Mongol empire to the history and growth of Asia and East Europe culture.

This is a PURE military history of the Mongols. It is topical rather than chronological. As the title of the book suggests, it is almost exclusively about the organization, training, weapons and equipment, logistics as well as the tactical and operational history of the superlative Mongol Army. I think the author should substantially expand those chapters of the book which discuss about the tactical and operational performances of the Mongol Army. Furthermore, for an excellent military history book like this one it is a shame that there are not enough tactical, military topographical maps to illustrate the chapters of the book (in particular those chapters that deal with the Mongol Army's battles, tactical and operational arts). I totally disagree with another reviewer who faulted the author for not discussing the social and economical factors behind the organization and behaviors of the Mongol Army. Those may be valid concerns for an academia (and I'm sure there are plenty of books on those factors on the market). But for a book about the Mongol Art of War they are quite irrelevant, in my opinion. As far as I know this is only the second book available (the other one is Richard Gabriel's Genghis Khan Greatest General Subotai the Valiant, which I also highly recommnend) that provides a DETAILED military history of the Mongol Army. If you enjoy military history, get this book.

Not sure why the other review thought the narrative was boring. Very interesting and most comprehensive book on the Mongol military I've read. Prof. May's analysis is clear and very insightful. Great maps too.

This is a great title written at a very lively pace. Anyone interested in military or world history will appreciate all the details and lesser-known facts, as well as the more traditional narrative passages and descriptions of individual Mongol leaders like Hulegu Khan and Subudai. The description of the infamous sacking of Baghdad in the 1250s is also very well done.

There is a lot to like about The Mongol Art of War. It is written, for the most part, from the ground up and gives great detail as to what individual Mongol soldiers carried with them, the weapons they used, the mounts they traveled on, and their daily tasks. The text is never dry or dull and the pace keeps the reader interested throughout. Great book.

This is a great book that covers topics not widely known about. Specifically, the author discusses Temujin's rise to power, the changes instituted by him, and how the Mongols had to adapt to their enemies tactics. Additionally, he gives detailed comparisons of the Mongols armies to their enemies. A bit more detail about the the Mongol's campaign invasion of Viet Nam, and the attempted invasion of Japan would have been nice. Also, more information about Subetai and Jebe ( Temujin's top generals ) would have been nice as well. Overall it is a great book that doesn't glamorize the Mongols nor does it demonize them.

This is an excellent book on an interesting culture. I will recommend this learned and jargon-free work to others.

It is a long stretch to link up the Mongol military apparatus of the 13th century with General Heinz Guderian's blitzkrieg tactics of 1941, but young historian Timothy May makes it -- although it might have been more cogent to have drawn the line from Genghis Khan to the combined arms tactics used by the Red Army (and, less impressively by the Americans and British) to defeat the Germans.

The book's publishers seem to have aimed it at readers who have never learned anything about the Mongols. From the dust jacket: "Contemporary descriptions of their conquests have led to a popular misconception that the Mongols were an undisciplined horde of terrifying horsemen who swept over opponents by sheer force of number." In other words, a furor Mongoliensis to match the furor Teutonicus that overwhelmed the western Romans.

Modern scholars have held no such misconceptions. The discipline and flexibility of stratagem of the Mongols was well understood long before young May began his dissertation at Madison. But by mastering several of the many languages that records of the Mongols have come down in, May has usefully expanded and refined our view.

Genghis (or as May irritatingly spells it Chinggis) was not an innovator but an organizer. He inherited steppe warfare methods, taking advantage of hardy ponies and powerful bows to range far and quickly against opponents who were, usually, slower footed. But Genghis usually (not always) beat other steppe formations.

May emphasizes the discipline Genghis imposed -- ruthlessly -- which allowed him to divide his forces and send out generals who were given specific strategic objectives (like, conquer Baghdad) but left alone to figure out how to do it.

With any other medieval army, an independent general would soon set up as an independent political force, but this did not happen as long as Genghis lived. Later, what on paper should have been an admirably democratic and flexible method of choosing successors failed completely. The empire was left in the hands of women regents and soon split up, like Alexander's and many another.

Genghis not only tamed his warrior aristocrats, he allowed for commoners to rise;and he provided a regular organization (by tens, a borrowed idea) and intense and uniform training.

This allowed him to divide his forces, which May uncritically admires, for "keeping his enemies off balance."

There is not a word about the universal maxim of concentration of forces. Genghis' method could work, so long as he had a clear advantage in mobility, which he always did, and better intelligence so that he could concentrate his forces at need, which he did not always have.

Isolated Mongol armies were sometimes defeated in detail, notably by the Mamelukes, who May considers the only warriors of the age who were individually better fighters than the Mongols. But he notes that the Mamelukes never had to face the entire Mongol army.

The Mongols were not, unlike European feudal knights, scornful of alien technique. They adopted siege engines, explosives and even learned how to run a navy, mostly from the Chinese.

What they never did was develop a theory of statecraft apart from warcraft. Originally just bandits, success went to their heads and they decided they had been ordained to rule the world. For what purpose, other than loot, was never explained.

Thus, the Mongols formed the biggest but one of the briefest empires history has ever known.

In modern terms, May describes them as like the German army of 1940-41, with a hard-hitting striking force that penetrated an enemy zone, leaving less mobile forces to mop up. This was spectacularly unsuccessful in Russia in 1941, as the Germans never had enough infantry to do the mopping up and managed to lose nearly a million casualties without capturing any important objective.

What May says the Mongols did is rather different from what he describes them as doing. The Red Army used a combined, balanced force of infantry, tanks and artillery to methodically reduce entire nations, and this is closer to what the Mongols did (despite not having any equivalent of field artillery), especially in China.

The illustrations show today's Mongol army in 13th c. armor and arms, duplicating the formations of tens of their ancestors, amusingly like Civil War re-enactors in the United States.

Much of the book was paraphrasing of chronicles and other sources. Trust me, reading chronicles is dull stuff, unless one has the cultural context in mind. But this is seldom provided. I do no believe the author once analyzes or even mentions the fact that the Mongols had a patrilineal or patrilateral social structure (the details are unclear) which must have influenced their government and military organization. Also, the author leaves hanging as to WHY the mongols engaged in their depredations at this particular time. He suggests that completely razing cities was a military strategy to protect the security of their rear as they moved on. Probably so, but surely the fact that pastoralists generally have ambivalent relations with agriculturalists had something to do with it. The economic foundations of the Mongol military machine are not not well discussed in any event. Nevertheless I did learn something from this book although more diagrams or photos of equipment would have been helpful.

I only skimmed through this book at the bookstore...seems a fairly standard chronicle of rather common knowledge to my fifteen minutes' impression...what struck me immediately was how little typos were littered here and there, starting from the back dust jacket, and even in the very first few introductory paragraphs! Silly things like confusing "you're" with "your," "there" with "their"...that kind of stuff. I'm sure the book is an otherwise fine introduction to the subject, but it's really weird how even a purportedly scholarly work can be subject to linguistic carelessness these days, in the age of internet culture....