Genghis Khan and Making of the Modern World, Essay Example

There is hardly anyone who does not know the name of the great master of the steppes who managed to conquer a significant part of the Eurasian continent and who kept the power over those lands efficiently for nearly a century – Genghis Khan has firmly entered the world history as a great man with a great power. Genghis Khan has become an embodiment of the whole Mongol culture, nation and traditions: when speaking about Mongols and their reign in the course of the 12^th and 13^th centuries everyone will first of all recollect the name of Genghis Khan and his achievements in the warfare, in the development of his lands and in the cultural prosperity the area under his power experienced while being a part of the Mongol Empire.

There is much spoken and written about the personality of Genghis Khan, his ability to conduct war actions and his treatment of conquered tribes and areas. A considerable part of literary sources has been dedicated to the studies of the Mongol era in Eurasia, and the opinions shifted in the course of time, with some historians depicting Genghis Khan as a cruel and inhumane pagan who conducted terrifying massacres for the sake of his wish for power. However, there have been some historians who doubt such a negative image of the Khan and his army, stating that they have done much for the development of the region over which they had established power and where they were considered masters for a long time.

The work being analyzed in the present paper is the one of Jack Weatherford – this author produced a detailed historical study of the Genghis Khan’s epoch that was published in 2004. The book looks really grounded on the historical facts because the main source that Weatherford used to construct the plot of the book and to take historical facts was “The Secret History of Mongols” – the authentic Mongol text dedicated to the description of their traditions, customs and events that took place during the reign of Genghis Khan. This apart, the approach to Genghis Khan’s personality that Weatherford took causes surprise and hesitations because the author made a considerably more positive emphasis on the personality of the outstanding ruler as well as on the history of his reign over the major part of Eurasia. It is surely hard to understand whether everything stated by Weatherford in his book is true and justifiable, but to understand this one should analyze the work in detail.

Despite the fact that there is so much historical evidence of how cruelly Mongols arranged their massacres, simply committing genocide and killing all people on their way, turning others into slaves, Weatherford tries to argue that point and to state that in fact such massacres happened very rarely, and were committed only over those who fought with Genghis Khan’s army and resisted their conquest. Thus, the author assumes, Genghis Khan did not have a blood-freezing massacre of huge scales as his initial and ultimate goal but only used such tough measures to make others scared and not to meet any resistance in the upcoming conquests.

Another distinguishing peculiarity of the work by Weatherford is that he looked much farther than only investigating the Mongol Empire in the period of time when Genghis Khan was at the peak of his power and prosperity. He looked for the initial sources where the ruler was depicted as a noble and generous king of his lands and went on by studying the change of the paradigm under which Genghis Khan was studied later. His discovery is really stumbling – Weatherford states that in general Genghis Khan never represented the beast as he is known nowadays, and the tragedy of misinterpretation of his personality and his actions in the distant past is the annihilation of the ruling class that he committed to subdue the lands conquered, and the further power of literacy concentrated in the hands of that same upper class.

This point of view, though it cannot be fully proven, has the right for existence because of the repeated practice like that. During the Middle Ages, and further on in Renaissance and Enlightenment many historical events were rewritten and interpreted in the way that the community of that time considered necessary. Ordinary people having no opportunity to write were urged to leave all their remembrances with them, unable to share them and restore the justice; however, the ruling class wrote their own history, created their own religion and philosophy, thus offering the upcoming generation a false history that they considered more appropriate and more appealing for their own self-interests. Weatherford mentions the way Jeffrey Chaucer paid tribute to the contribution of the Mongol race to the future development of the European society, and wonders how the image of Mongols could have changed so drastically within a short period of time.

Nonetheless, it is necessary to have a deeper look at the historical facts that went through the prism of personal perception of the author in the book “Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World” to be able to make more grounded conclusions about the credibility of information as well as the point of view put forward by the author as an independent observer of historical information about Mongols and peoples who existed under their reign. The book consists of three major parts that are arranged in the chronological order, starting with the epoch of Genghis Khan itself describing the reign of that Mongol king, moving further with the Mongol World War that took place for 50 years and marked the 13^th century, and finishing with the overall course of history and the reflection of Genghis Khan’s figure in different dimensions during different epochs that followed the disappearance of his Empire. Each part deserves separate attention and analysis, which will be done further.

First of all, the introduction to the whole book requires separate attention due to the sensitivity and emotions of the author put into the narrative about Genghis Khan and his life, the way he created his powerful empire and saved thousands of people from oppression. Weatherford creates an image of a courageous, generous and noble nomad who experienced cruelty and injustice from the very beginning of his life and further on still achieved success on his life path. The author argues that it is hard to exaggerate his good deeds due to the fact that he managed to create a great empire alone, without anyone else’s help, which was simply impossible for a less great man that he was. In this point it is hard to argue with the author taking into consideration how grand the figure of Genghis Khan was and how much he did for his people – an ordinary person or a simple blood-thirsty villain could not have achieved such profound success.

As a part of the introduction, Weatherford also states that the main victory of Genghis Khan with which he can be credited even nowadays was that he managed to free the tribes who inhabited the inner Asia from exploitation and united them under one ruler. Taking into consideration the size of Eurasia and the number of local cultures, religions and civilizations that existed in the late 12^th century on the continent, his unification of such a great number of people under one reign, for one civilization is worth appreciation above everything else. Weatherford also investigates the series of economic and social reforms that Genghis Khan introduced in the conquered areas and finds them more than liberal – reduced taxes, the creation of a free trade zone are worth separate attention due to their revolutionary, democratic essence. Dedication to the law created by Genghis Khan was also a powerful tool for establishment of the order on the whole area of the Mongol Empire – the international law, the highest supremacy of the law were such strange notions for the medieval times that they could hardly have been found anywhere else in the world. There is much historical evidence of the reforms that Mongols experienced during the reign of Genghis Khan, but still such liberalism sounds too incredible when speaking about the nomads whose art and whose work was to kill and to conquer.

The first part of the work including three chapters is dedicated to the beginning of Genghis Khan’s life and gaining power in the Asian steppes. First of all, his birth is described – he was a child in the persecuted family and had to wonder much in the steppes before he finally came to power. The second chapter is dedicated to the war in which Genghis Khan took part upon the request of the Muslims of Balasagun and defeated Guchlug, the ruler who was in the marriage with the Buddhist woman and represented a Christian family. This was a major step of Genghis Khan on the way of fighting for the religious equality and freedom, which was also highly extraordinary in the context of the 12^th century, thus sounding incredible. This fact takes aside all accusations of Genghis Khan who was known as a cruel pagan who annihilated Christians and fought to impose his own religion on others.

The further part of the chapter is very rich for the historical details pertaining to the military organization of Genghis Khan’s army, the administrative changes that he introduced in the country that he created under his own reign, the defense that he provided for the Muslims etc. From the picture created by Weatherford it comes that Temujin, as Genghis Khan was called then, became a very just and liberal ruler, though he was extremely cruel as for his enemies who he killed, boiled in the water or beheaded. So the first part of the work by Weatherford ends by summing up the beginning of the reign of Genghis Khan and the changes he began to adopt to make his territory strong from the point of view of economy, commerce, trade and development in all spheres. These elements that are present at the beginning of each chapter do represent a trustworthy part of the material on which the book is based because of the reliable sources used by the author.

Genghis Khan, as a wise ruler, understood that Mongols were nomads, thus having no firm ground for existence and for prosperity. This is why he saw the main path for wealth and stability in the encouragement and promotion of all spheres of economic activity that were typical for the tribes they conquered. Following that development strategy for the subdued lands Genghis Khan managed to sustain the well-being both of the nation under his rule and his army, which was highly eloquent from the point of view of Genghis Khan’s wisdom and consideration of long-term consequences of his policies on the territories under his power.

The next section is dedicated to the war actions that Genghis Khan undertook as soon as he decided to produce invasions on the neighboring regions and crossed the Gobi and invaded the Chinese part of Asia – Manchuria that at that time was governed by Jurched. The war with the Chinese and the eventual victory of Genghis Khan revealed the true power and strength of Mongols: due to their nomadic style of life and their dairy diet they appeared much stronger, healthier and more enduring than warriors of other countries. Such a discovery together with the complicated victory over China made Genghis Khan’s army almost undefeatable and started his conquest way around the continent.

The war with China also taught Mongols much – they learned such techniques for conducting war actions as trebuchets, catapults, ballista etc. This precious knowledge helped the army much in further battles. The battle with the sultan of Khwarizm is also described in one of the chapters because it showed how relentless the sultan could be in case his people were abused and the laws he concluded were broken. The case considered the violated treaty that Genghis Khan concluded with the Sultan: the latter was guided by his greed and stole all luxurious goods that the caravan of Genghis Khan was carrying. The conflict was resolved only after nearly a half-a-year trip of Genghis Khan to Bukhara where he finally managed to punish the wicked sultan for his crime – this is a highly credible story taking into consideration the severe characters of nomads like Mongols.

Finishing the book with the account of European interaction with the history of Mongols and Genghis Khan, the author allows many assumptions that can hardly be proven or rejected by facts. The reason for this is that there is no way to understand whether the ruling class of European and Slavic countries could have felt such exceptional hatred towards Genghis Khan that they decided to re-write the history of that noble person. It seems highly impossible that such tremendous work on erasing all positive reminders of the liberalism and reformation, democracy and religious freedom that the nation under Genghis Khan enjoyed would be destroyed within a certain period of time. There would be much more debates over his personality, and still there would be much more historical evidence of his positive deeds. Judging from all these considerations, it is possible to say that in general the book produces a highly positive impression due to the style of writing, the mood of the author felt on each page, but still the book lacks consistency in many parts where the personality of Genghis Khan and Mongol’s contribution to the world’s culture as well as their favorable living conditions for captivated people should be called into question.

References

Weatherford, J. (2004). Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. Three River Press / Crown.