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A review by mastersal
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford
4.0
Listened on audio - highly recommended, the narrator was excellent. Picked this up as an break from the fiction I was reading - which was much needed as it turned out.
In general this book was excellent and I really enjoyed my time reading / listening to it. This is written as more of a narrative which really worked for me. I liked it so much that I picked up the fiction series on Genghis Khan as I wanted to spend more time with the man. His life story was so fascinating. The book proved to be very interesting introduction to the period and Mongol history. For me it worked well as I was not familiar with the Mongols - I knew some of the events but didn't have much background so this provided a great book to whet my interest.
The book does read like a hagiography for Genghis Khan but I think that this is a counterpoint to the typical barbarian narrative used to describe the Mongol. This book really is in conversation with other prevailing myths which does make to difficult to judge this as a standalone history. And I acknowledge that this is probably unfair as this is a history book - but I did note the bias while reading.
However, I will need to caveat that while this book is a great narrative - it reads like fiction and very well told - as an academic text which is a little annoying because I am not sure how he came to some conclusions and what sources he used.
The issue is that the author is contending with sooooo much history that it can’t fully capture the impact of the Mongol. As an example, you need to know who the Golden Horde was or the Illkhanate sultanate to be impressed by the name drop. I also think to keep the "momentum" of the book some of the statements appear without substantiation, which works while reading but does irk me as I wanted to read more around the conclusion and couldn't track it.
In the end, I am going to knock a star for lack of rigour - as a narrative this is a full 5 star but as a history I would appreciated a little more traceability. I also really wanted to understand how much of the book was original research based on his time in Mongolia and what was based on other books. For example, the secret history references was new based on recent world done in Mongolia, which was really cool. However, half of the the book deals with stuff after Genghis Khan's death so is not based on his research. I was confused as to how he came to the conclusions he did so as I history I can’t give this 5 stars.
I would still recommend this as an introduction and for the more general reader than someone who is familiar with the time period and history.
In general this book was excellent and I really enjoyed my time reading / listening to it. This is written as more of a narrative which really worked for me. I liked it so much that I picked up the fiction series on Genghis Khan as I wanted to spend more time with the man. His life story was so fascinating. The book proved to be very interesting introduction to the period and Mongol history. For me it worked well as I was not familiar with the Mongols - I knew some of the events but didn't have much background so this provided a great book to whet my interest.
The book does read like a hagiography for Genghis Khan but I think that this is a counterpoint to the typical barbarian narrative used to describe the Mongol. This book really is in conversation with other prevailing myths which does make to difficult to judge this as a standalone history. And I acknowledge that this is probably unfair as this is a history book - but I did note the bias while reading.
However, I will need to caveat that while this book is a great narrative - it reads like fiction and very well told - as an academic text which is a little annoying because I am not sure how he came to some conclusions and what sources he used.
The issue is that the author is contending with sooooo much history that it can’t fully capture the impact of the Mongol. As an example, you need to know who the Golden Horde was or the Illkhanate sultanate to be impressed by the name drop. I also think to keep the "momentum" of the book some of the statements appear without substantiation, which works while reading but does irk me as I wanted to read more around the conclusion and couldn't track it.
In the end, I am going to knock a star for lack of rigour - as a narrative this is a full 5 star but as a history I would appreciated a little more traceability. I also really wanted to understand how much of the book was original research based on his time in Mongolia and what was based on other books. For example, the secret history references was new based on recent world done in Mongolia, which was really cool. However, half of the the book deals with stuff after Genghis Khan's death so is not based on his research. I was confused as to how he came to the conclusions he did so as I history I can’t give this 5 stars.
I would still recommend this as an introduction and for the more general reader than someone who is familiar with the time period and history.