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37 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent introduction to an obscure people, September 1, 2003
Morgan's book is easily the best introduction to one of the more interesting peoples of history. It's as much an account of the historiography of Mongol studies as it is a study of the Mongol people, as Morgan details the extant sources available to modern scholars for the subject. This is important, given the scope of the Mongol empire, which at its peak reached from China to Hungary, encompassing all that was in between. Such breadth of conquest places great demands on historians, limiting anybody who is not a polyglot of the languages of the era to base their study on the region in which they specialize and translations of the other languages. A student of Persian, Morgan makes an excellent case for the quality of the sources in that language. Still, the lack of a written Mongolian language (not developed until the reign of Chingiz Khan) means that much of the history of the empire is lost to us, and that what does exist is produced by outsiders. Nevertheless, Morgan does a first-rate job of describing its expansion and operation. He explains that the Mongols owed their incredible success to their use of mounted warriors, a natural role for a nomadic people. This heavy use of horses both gave them and also limited their conquests: Morgan theorizes that inadequate pastureland may have been a critical factor in the withdrawal of Mongol invaders from both Hungary in 1242 and Syria in 1260. But the most revealing factor of the importance of the Mongol army in its historical achievements lay in the overthrow of Mongol rule; it was in the areas where the Mongols were able to maintain their nomadic lifestyles (and thus their military advantage) that Mongol control proved most enduring. In all, Morgan provides a good, concise overview of a fascinating subject.
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31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Sober Evaluation of the Mongols, June 4, 2006
In the wake of Jack Weatherford's extremely popular "Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World," I'm guessing interest in Genghis Khan and his Mongolian Empire is reaching new heights. I must admit that I, too, was introduced into the fascinating world of the Mongolians through Weatherford's bestseller, so I owe him alot for introducing to me what I consider a new passion in life.
Weatherford's work, while being extremely well researched and well written, is extremely revisionist, and gives a very forgiving and optimistic account of Genghis Khan, his predecessors, and their abilities. Weatherford takes great pains to combat the traditional stereotypes of Genghis Khan and the Mongolians as barbaric, mass-murdering hordes. At the same time, I feel that since for many people Weatherford's book will be the very first people read about the Mongols, alot of people will get an impression of the Mongols that is a little too favorable and optimistic, and this is where David Morgan's "The Mongols" comes in.
"The Mongols" is, in a word, sober. On one hand, it definitely breaks away from the precedent set by medieval scholars in viewing Genghis Khan and the Mongols as purely forces of wanton destruction. Whenever Morgan evaluates a primary source, which he does often, he takes great pains to weed out any political motivations to skewer numbers and accounts that existed at the time, of which there were many. This means that Morgan never overestimates Mongol detruction, but he doesn't underestimate it either, which what Weatherford seems to have done, basing his book on select sources. I therefore recommend "The Mongols" as a good, middle-of-the-road source for establishing the historical events of the 12th to 13th century. When reading "The Mongols," one always gets a sense that Morgan is a level-headed, unbiased thinker, which is the perfect type of historian necessary for a period as tumultuous as the years of the Mongolian Empire. It's a good followup to "Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World," together the two books give an good picture.
Additionaly, since this book is part of "The Peoples of Europe" collection, this book includes a special focus on the Mongols interactions with Europe, including both direct interaction in the invasions of Russia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe, and indirect interactions in the forms of the emmisaries, missionaries, merchants, and diplomats that were excanged between the East and the West. Much to my surprise, being a part of "The Peoples of Europe" series did not exclude a very thorough and extensive coverage of Mongol activity in Persia, Central Asia, and China, so when viewed as a whole, Morgan's work is still a very complete coverage.
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12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
competent and interesting, but a dull reading experience, May 18, 2009
This review is from: The Mongols (The Peoples of Europe) (Paperback)
This is a very academic introduction to the Mongol people and more particularly, the empire founded by Genghis Khan. Written at the undergraduate level, it provides the basics as well as a sense of the state of the field, i.e. what is known, what is not, and what needs to be done. It is workmanlike in tone, but to put it mildly, very dry.
The beginning seemed designed to turn off all but the most determined reader. It is a scholarly overview of the original sources on the Mongols. While this is very interesting - to read them in the original it would require knowledge of Chinese, Persian, Turkish and Arabic at a minimum - the place for it is an afterward, or even footnotes, not 30 pages of turgid prose, that is, if you want to spark interest in a lay reader rather than count on academic obligation to get through it.
The same is true of the conclusion, which is an overview of scholarship since 1985, i.e. when the first edition was published. There you get served the dullest array of academic controversies, many of which are choices of emphasizing one interpretation over the others, e.g. were the Mongols really as brutal as their reputation or did they bring good to those they governed? An essential question, but the way that it is presented in unspeakably boring and reeks of intellectuals taking a stand in order to develop interpretations (however silly or unrealistic) in order to advance their careers. Indeed, that this is tacked on as a final chapter rather than integrated into the text is a sign of laziness if you ask me. There is no wrapup, but instead this stilted and rambling discussion of who is saying what at the moment.
That leaves a scant 150 pages for all of the historical information on the Mongols. As such, it is very thin gruel, stripped of any storytelling or feeling for how things were in the 13th and 14th century. It is threadbare and flavorless, if essential, reading.
Genghis Khan arose from the nomadic steppe peoples North of China. He raised a great army with a core of ur-loyalists he kept as his bodyguard, otherwise he mixed the people of various tribes. The Mongol warriors' principal strength was their cavalry, which was capable of great coordination and flexibility on the field. Each knight had approximately 5 hourses in tow, in keeping with their nomadic lifestyles on the plains. This was also a limitation, of course, in that they had to find food for them. The difference, it seems, is that Genghis was not only after plunder, but was interested in tax revenues from conquered peoples (in particular the Chinese in the North) and even allowed local elites most of the power to administer in their stead, paying tribute while keeping their prestige, etc. This kind of cooptation is similar to the Romans (without the cultural assimilation component). Upon his death in 1227, he left a vast empire to be divided by his sons, who ruled more or less separately to 100 years, either ejected by collapse or absorbed into local elites.
The legacy of the Mongols remains controversial. Like conquerors of that time, they were extremely brutal, killing entire cities if they refused to capitulate without fighting. While they were impressed with both Persia and China, where they copied their civilizations, they destroyed or melted down many artifacts and irreplacable libraries such as those in Bagdad. They tolerated local religions, eventually adopting the Muslim religion to replace native shamanism, nestorian christianity, and buddhism. Their organizational genius may also have been copied by the Ottoman Turks. Like all empires, their collapse was quick when it occurred - disunited, warring between khanates, and far from supply lines and their cultural sources.
I am glad I read this book, but continually felt disappointed at its mediocre writing and airing of obscure academic controversies. Recommended tepidly.
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