The History And The Life Of Chinggis Khan

This fresh translation of one of the only surviving Mongol sources about the Mongol empire, brings out the excitement of this epic with its wide-ranging commentaries on military and social conditions, religion and philosophy, while remaining faithful to the original text.

The History was written in the 13th Century. It deals briefly with the ancestors and successor (Ögödei, reign 1228-1241) of Chinggis Khan and in more detail with the life of Chinggis Khan, who was founder of the Mongol Empire. The empire during Khubilai Khan's reign was expanded from Mongolia and China to the western edge of Russia. It was the most extensive empire ever established on horseback (about 700 years later, the British empire was built on ships). The History has been translated into many foreign languages: Hungarian, Turkish, Polish, Chinese, Russian, French, German, Japanese and English, but the integral text has never before been translated by a native Mongol scholar, using mainly the Mongolian sources to explicate the meaning of previous unknown words in it. As the translator and annotator says in his introduction, the History is the winners' history. The losers' version might well have been different. Chinggis Khan with his 129,000 Mongol cavalrymen never lost a battle. He was the best strategist the world has ever produced. In his article "Chingis Khan and the Mongol Conquest", the late Professor Owen Lattimore said "As a military genius, able to take over new techniques and improve them, Chingis stands above Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Caesar, Atilla and Napoleon" (See Scientific American, August 1963, p. 66).

There has long been a need for a scholarly English edition of the great 13th century historical epic, The Secret History of the Mongols, the only surviving Mongol source about the empire. The book is mainly about the life and the career of Chinggis Khan, his ancestors and his rise to power. Chinggis Khan was not only a military genius, but also a great statesman and diplomat. Through a combination of armed force and diplomacy, he managed to merge the complex system of alliances which existed between diverse tribes into a powerful confederacy that swept across most of Eurasia, starting in 1219. Urgunge Onon's fresh translation brings out the excitement of this epic with its wide-ranging commentaries on military and social conditions, religion and philosophy, while remaining faithful to the original text. This fully annotated edition is prefaced by a 36 page introduction setting the work in its cultural and historical context.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The startling true history of how one extraordinary man from a remote corner of the world created an empire that led the world into the modern age—by the author featured in Echoes of the Empire: Beyond Genghis Khan. The Mongol army led by Genghis Khan subjugated more lands and people in twenty-five years than the Romans did in four hundred. In nearly every country the Mongols conquered, they brought an unprecedented rise in cultural communication, expanded trade, and a blossoming of civilization. Vastly more progressive than his European or Asian counterparts, Genghis Khan abolished torture, granted universal religious freedom, and smashed feudal systems of aristocratic privilege. From the story of his rise through the tribal culture to the explosion of civilization that the Mongol Empire unleashed, this brilliant work of revisionist history is nothing less than the epic story of how the modern world was made.

“A fascinating romp through the feminine side of the infamous Khan clan” (Booklist) by the author featured in Echoes of the Empire: Beyond Genghis Khan “Enticing . . . hard to put down.”—Associated Press The Mongol queens of the thirteenth century ruled the largest empire the world has ever known. The daughters of the Silk Route turned their father’s conquests into the first truly international empire, fostering trade, education, and religion throughout their territories and creating an economic system that stretched from the Pacific to the Mediterranean. Yet sometime near the end of the century, censors cut a section about the queens from the Secret History of the Mongols, and, with that one act, the dynasty of these royals had seemingly been extinguished forever, as even their names were erased from the historical record. With The Secret History of the Mongol Queens, a groundbreaking and magnificently researched narrative, Jack Weatherford restores the queens’ missing chapter to the annals of history.

Genghis Khan is one of history's immortals: a leader of genius, driven by an inspiring vision for peaceful world rule. Believing he was divinely protected, Genghis united warring clans to create a nation and then an empire that ran across much of Asia. Under his grandson, Kublai Khan, the vision evolved into a more complex religious ideology, justifying further expansion. Kublai doubled the empire's size until, in the late 13th century, he and the rest of Genghis’s ‘Golden Family’ controlled one fifth of the inhabited world. Along the way, he conquered all China, gave the nation the borders it has today, and then, finally, discovered the limits to growth. Genghis's dream of world rule turned out to be a fantasy. And yet, in terms of the sheer scale of the conquests, never has a vision and the character of one man had such an effect on the world. Charting the evolution of this vision, John Man provides a unique account of the Mongol Empire, from young Genghis to old Kublai, from a rejected teenager to the world’s most powerful emperor.

"The History of Genghis Khan" is a splendid review of the life and times of the founder and Great Khan (emperor) of the Mongol Empire. His empire became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death. He came to power by uniting many of the nomadic tribes of the Mongol steppe and being proclaimed the universal ruler of the Mongols, or Genghis Khan.