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Title: The History of the Mongol Conquests by J. J. Saunders ISBN: 0-8122-1766-7 Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.2 (5 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Solid historic work
Comment: On balance it is a solid and readable compilation of primary and secondary sources on the subject. I liked the book and the author did a good deal of work to produce it. Unfortunately, there is a gross error right in the second paragraph of the book. Though, it is peripheral to the core material. Details of such a remote period of history are scarce, understandably so, and author stretches the book with dynamics of Islam, Christianity etc in Asia during the period. In itself a fasinating topic but NOT related to Mongol Conquests.
Rating: 3
Summary: Thorough but academic
Comment: This is not for the lighthearted reader, but it is a fairly thorough review of the subject, and the author seems to have done rigorous analysis before asserting anything that may not be true. In that sense, you can accept this book with confidence. One annoyance is that the amount of notes is considerable, and they are all at the end of the book instead of the bottom of pages. So you find yourself flipping to the notes to get background information that probably could and should have been included in the text to allow for more fluid reading. It reads a little more slowly than your typical nonfiction book.
Rating: 4
Summary: Chingis Khan unmasked
Comment: 'The History of the Mongol Conquests' is a respectable book ' solid scholarship, persuasive analysis, and interesting read. I actually have learned enormous amount not just about the Mongols, but also about the Chinese from this book. I have only couple critical remarks. The author seems confused about origins of the ethos, which become associated (at least in the Russian mind) forever with the Mongols. This question is simple - who are the Tatars, where they came from? Saunders writes on page 158 ''new race of 'Tartars' emerged out of a fusion of Mongols, Turks, Slavs, and Finns.' OK, I agree with that. But he goes further distinguishing 'Tatars' from 'Tartars', speaking about 'Tatars' as one Mongol-speaking tribe. Actually on the map on page 30 'Tatars' are placed in the Northern China. This doesn't make any sense for me. 'Tartars' and 'Tatars' are the same, except 'Tartars' is Western European and 'Tatars' is Russian name. And yet he confuses the things further by sometimes using the word 'Tatars' as interchangeable with 'Turks'.
Another passage I have a suspicious feeling about is on page 170. He goes -'Defeat of Christianity in the area where its prospects seemed favorable is perhaps attributable to'inferiority of the Russians to the Persians and Chinese in the scale of civilization'. I disagree with this approach. First of all, what is this 'scale'? I think while the Persians had to accept Islam - the religion of nomadic Arab tribes invading Persia in 7th century from the Arabian peninsular, Russia had avoided Shamanism - religion of the invading Mongols. Later Moscovy held up as a Christian state and avoided Islam ' a semi-official religion of the 'The Golden Horde'. To my view Russian civilization was not inferior, but purhaps less glamorous than Persian/Iranic. This turned out to be ultimately a blessing in disguise for the Russians. The Mongols didn't want to go deeper to these forests and swamps; they preferred much more the open steppe. And while Kiev was destroyed, this 'inferior' civilization did survived 265 years of Mongol domination. The Russian civilization was preserved in monasteries among those marshes and forests of the North, hidden away from the Mongols and other foreigners. Anyway, despite several slippery passages, I would recommend this one to anyone interested in the subject ' the book is well written and fascinating (it least it was for me).
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