The unavoidable collapse of the nomad empire proved a multi-national country won’t survive long.
The success of survival story of Chinese civilization (The Chinese took advantage of their large monocultural population to reversely devoured the Mongols and Manchurians who had once conquered them militarily) proved the opposite is true.
The Mongolian Empire, or the British Empire, may have once looked big on map, but lacking a subject nation they were just pavilions in the air. Eventually they would be disintegrated easily.
To maintain a nation, you need at least one strong thing to bind people together, such as a common language, religion, or a shared history and enemies, whether they are real or not.
With the notable exception of Rome, most Empires are comparatively short lived, two to three centuries being the norm.
Multiculturalism (what a dreadful word) is only one factor in the contest of “survival of the fittest”.
To take China as an example, and in chronological order:
Ibn khaldun puts a dynasty at 120 years, 3 generations of 40 years. Maj Gen Sir John Glubb places an empire duration at about 250 years( Assyrian onwards ). The exception is Egypt which is renewed post 1200 BC.
Genghis Khan killed about 40M. In one city 1.2M were murdered. Some citiesin Central Asia never recovered.
The attitude of Russians today are still shaped by Mongol Rule.
Ah, Glubb Pasha, that’s a great name from the past.
I’m glad ‘we’ are in close agreement.
I beg to disagree over Egypt. Although it dominated the Lower Nile for centuries, it was very much an homogeneous mono-culture, that only sporadic raided into the neighbouring Levant, and thus ruled nobody for very long but themselves.
The definition of Empire is normally traced back to ‘Imperium’, the idea ruling over ‘others’, as most Empires have done.
China is the exception in a way, as it conquered relatively few non Han Chinese. However I suppose due to its sheer size ‘we’ have dignified it with the title of Empire. By the same logic was Japan really ever an Empire, except for a nanosecond in history?
One Empire we have omitted was the comparatively long lived Ottoman Empire, although by 1820 if not before it was fading fast.
“China is the exception in a way, as it conquered relatively few non Han Chinese.”
That’s just a illusion. Most of the “barbarians” in its colonies were completely sinicized into Han Chinese, so the assimilated peoples would not have left much of their own ethnic history, plus there was no other major power in the region, so the Chinese empire was always able to recover the territory of the previous generation. Only Tibet and Xinjiang were too remote to maintain close control, reaching the limits of imperial control in the pre-industrial era. So Beijing adopted some policy of limited ethnic autonomy. It wasn’t until recently has China begun the process of assimilation in these remote areas.
Imperial Japan’s assimilation process in Taiwan and Korea would almost have succeeded if it had not foolishly expanded the war.
Well if that is the case who were the original Han & how did they dominate the rest?
.Today there seem to be 17 sub species of Han, making up 92% of the population of China.
It is rather like the Franks, Lombards, Alemani,Visigoths,Saxons, Vandals and Suevi, who we now call Germans. Or on a smaller scale Angles, Saxons and Jutes are now English (but still really German) is it not?
The formation of the sense of Han (literally means man) originated from the contact between the Chinese agrarian peoples and the nomadic foreigners in the north.
According to China’s own history, Chinese civilisation originated in the Yellow River basin. So the North China Plain (today’s area around Henan, Hebei and Shandong) was the original Han Chinese, basically the location of the states of the “Zhou Dynasty” and the Warring States period.
Through military conquest, its overwhelming demographic advantage, and its cultural advantage over the mountain aborigines of the south and southwest. It was basically a snowballing process.
In addition, Chinese used ideograms/ pictograms as scripts. Unlike the Latin alphabet, it can hardly be used to spell other language.
Oh they did. Like that Led Zep line about the Vikings: “…So now you’d better stop, and rebuild all your ruins, For peace and trust can win the day, despite of all your losing…”
Sidney Falco
3 years ago
Another essay about how we all used to black, or how wonderful Islam was/is from someone with the irrelevant veneer of “genetics” expertise.
Would be better suited to the Guardian or the BBC.
Just returned to this ridiculous article out of boredom….yawn…
But I much agree with the lines on a Middle Eastern antique dealer catalogue,
“But, Why Would Such a Large Empire Leave so Few Artifacts?
Despite Genghis Kahn’s greatness at conquering others, he was not a creator; he had no desire to create. Conversely, the greatest conqueror of all time was a skilled destroyer. This means that although he did indeed build a grand empire, he did not build the things that we usually assume make up an empire, such as libraries, roads, and governmental buildings. After all, he came from a nomadic culture and remained a nomad all his years. He rode from town to town and city to city conquering them and in many cases destroying them without building anything to take their places.
And that is why there are so few Genghis Kahn artifacts for us to collect.”
This guy needs to get in the ‘Decolonizing of history’ industry which has taken over our entire education system in the West, to help make sure no real history remains. I assume there is good money in the ‘Correcting’ of history if you get in with the right sort, with the right sort of political connections.
mike otter
3 years ago
Not sure that’s the point of the piece and it certainly isn’t the point of the book. The flexible and organic nature of Ghengis Khan era Mongol society, their legal, economic and military systems, allowed them to prosper amongst different peoples in a way the Saracen and Christian could not. However the “different” people were the Mongols’ vassals who may be enslaved, expelled or killed at the whim of a Khan or his officers. Once the Mongols dropped the compromise based kuriltai decisions of Ghengis’ era for old fashioned autocracy the wheels fell off and Russia, China, Persia, Poland etc took the spoils.
Last edited 3 years ago by mike otter
ralph bell
3 years ago
Fascinating historical piece, but it makes you think that over such vast geographical territory and a very long period, so many massive events must be missing. Just think about the past 100 years: flight, genocides, medicine and technology including manned missions to the moon.
“Just think about the past 100 years: flight, genocides, medicine and technology including manned missions to the moon.” That’s all just white saviour stuff. The really important development has been intersectionality.
Margaret F
3 years ago
It might be a good idea to remember that the “Golden Horde” had nothing we consider to be culture or civilization. No art, no philosophy, no literature, no science, no music, no mathematics, no religion, etc. Why wouldn’t they be tolerant of other cultures when they had no culture of their own? Really all they had was violence and speed. Why are we discussing them?
This is like saying the British Empire had no culture but only boats and cannons. The Mongols were incredibly successful and ruthless on the battlefield. They wrought so much damage because their excellent generals and khans won battle after battle. The Chinese, Muslim and Europeans they invaded were just as violent when on the winning side of a siege. The Mongols were happy to cherry pick from other cultures and religions, if it served their purpose. It seems an eminently sensible way to run a medieval empire spanning Eurasia. I suppose the question is why you think we shouldn’t be discussing the Mongol Empire while doing just that yourself?
You lost me there… I think everyone agrees (whether they like the British Empire or not) that the British certainly have/had a culture. All that stuff I mentioned… science, literature, philosophy, etc. Do you understand that the point is that the Mongols had NONE of it? And that’s the point. They had no culture. Which (to me at least) makes them pretty boring. The opposite of the British Empire in every way that matters. Also, do you understand the difference between discussing something and discussing why there is a discussion of that thing? hmmm…I thought not.
Of course they had a culture. Just not one with elements that you value. They could not have organised themselves or sustained themselves over such large spaces and for so long without ideas, customs, and social behaviour (a.k.a. “culture”) that were effective and durable.
William MacDougall
3 years ago
The title “Tsar” from the Mongols??? It means Caesar, and clearly came from Byzantium, and Rome before that. The Mongols ended Chinese technical advances, and massacred and destroyed many and much. Raises questions about the whole essay…
Surely the fundamental point is that a strict position of “empire is unredeemably evil” is always wrong, and that all regimes can have good and bad consequences.
That is hardly his point. First who says ‘Empire is irredeemably evil’? Because that would be crazy. But that the Mongol empire was about as evil as any would be is what I would say, and this guy refutes it, and says the Mongols civilized the West – in a remarkably Bizarre claim.
Really? What about all that flaying alive and then wearing the greasy skin like a wet suit?
Anyway they failed the Darwinian Test of not being
able to defend themselves from marauders who had travelled 3,000 miles to get at them.
Bravo Cortez!
I am joking, the new trend of decolonizing education means every thing a Westerner achieved, a non-Western thing which equals it must be found. I can think of no civilization less useful than the one I said above.
Along with the Gothic thugs who destroyed the Western Roman Empire, the Mongols were one of the most nihilistic and destructive forces in the history of mankind.
Fortunately their pernicious influence was short lived and now they are just an obscure footnote of History.
At least they gave Islam a ‘good kicking” and destroyed Bagdad and the Abbasid Caliphate in the process.
Kremlington Swan
2 years ago
Such an interesting read, and without once mentioning the death toll. Wikipedia – I just checked – puts it at around 11 percent of the world’s population.
They don’t much sound like tolerant traders to me, more murderers who got sick of wading knee deep through blood and body parts and decided to try not killing people for a while to see if they liked it.
Yet there is perhaps a lesson to be drawn for all those for whom rape, torture, mutilation and murder sounds like a good day out – where are the Mongols now?
Vanished.
Last edited 2 years ago by Kremlington Swan
Prashant Kotak
2 years ago
It is estimated that 1 in every 200 people in the world is a direct descendant of Genghis Khan. So Mr Prosser was not the last of his line after all. And the proof is everywhere. I surely can’t be the only one to have noticed the startling resemblence of George Galloway to the Great Khan?
I think there is a far more striking resemblance between George Galloway and Genghis Khan’s horse’s arse.
Margaret F
2 years ago
Orc Studies (in all its forms) is a very hot discipline these days.
Eamonn Toland
2 years ago
I thought the Romans were quite keen on religious tolerance within the Empire. One version of the Edict of Milan, issued in 313, reads: “no one whatsoever should be denied freedom to devote himself either to the cult of the Christians or to such religion as he deems best suited for himself, so that the highest divinity, to whose worship we pay allegiance with free minds, may grant us in all things his wonted favour and benevolence”
Unfortunately that all stopped from 381 onwards, thanks to Theodosius, and his punitive Edicts against so called Pagans.
Jorge Espinha
2 years ago
Isn’t this a just so article? According to Dan Carlin, some historians estimate the Mongols killed 70 million people. Tens of millions of humans killed in an area that extended from China to Hungary would always change history. Many great cities were razed to the ground. Other historians claim the Islamic Middle east never recovered. You can say something similar about the Nazis. Once upon a time, there was a Europe with a thriving Jewish population with millions of people of different ethnicities living side by side. After WWII the European Jewish population almost disappeared and European countries became more homogenous ethnically speaking. The Nazis helped the birth of modern Europe, but are we, a better Europe?
David Brown
2 years ago
“This is the nearly 400-page case Marie Favereau lays out in The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World — and it’s a convincing one. A professor of history at Paris Nanterre University, Favereau’s previous published work…” So an academic could do it, too, and the article is essentially a four word critique of the argument of the 400 page book: “it’s a convincing one.”
The unavoidable collapse of the nomad empire proved a multi-national country won’t survive long.
The success of survival story of Chinese civilization (The Chinese took advantage of their large monocultural population to reversely devoured the Mongols and Manchurians who had once conquered them militarily) proved the opposite is true.
The Mongolian Empire, or the British Empire, may have once looked big on map, but lacking a subject nation they were just pavilions in the air. Eventually they would be disintegrated easily.
To maintain a nation, you need at least one strong thing to bind people together, such as a common language, religion, or a shared history and enemies, whether they are real or not.
With the notable exception of Rome, most Empires are comparatively short lived, two to three centuries being the norm.
Multiculturalism (what a dreadful word) is only one factor in the contest of “survival of the fittest”.
To take China as an example, and in chronological order:
Han: Four centuries.
Tang: Three centuries.
Song :Three centuries (just).
Mongols: One century.
Ming: Three centuries.
Manchu : Two and a half centuries.
Ibn khaldun puts a dynasty at 120 years, 3 generations of 40 years. Maj Gen Sir John Glubb places an empire duration at about 250 years( Assyrian onwards ). The exception is Egypt which is renewed post 1200 BC.
Genghis Khan killed about 40M. In one city 1.2M were murdered. Some citiesin Central Asia never recovered.
The attitude of Russians today are still shaped by Mongol Rule.
Ah, Glubb Pasha, that’s a great name from the past.
I’m glad ‘we’ are in close agreement.
I beg to disagree over Egypt. Although it dominated the Lower Nile for centuries, it was very much an homogeneous mono-culture, that only sporadic raided into the neighbouring Levant, and thus ruled nobody for very long but themselves.
The definition of Empire is normally traced back to ‘Imperium’, the idea ruling over ‘others’, as most Empires have done.
China is the exception in a way, as it conquered relatively few non Han Chinese. However I suppose due to its sheer size ‘we’ have dignified it with the title of Empire. By the same logic was Japan really ever an Empire, except for a nanosecond in history?
One Empire we have omitted was the comparatively long lived Ottoman Empire, although by 1820 if not before it was fading fast.
“China is the exception in a way, as it conquered relatively few non Han Chinese.”
That’s just a illusion. Most of the “barbarians” in its colonies were completely sinicized into Han Chinese, so the assimilated peoples would not have left much of their own ethnic history, plus there was no other major power in the region, so the Chinese empire was always able to recover the territory of the previous generation. Only Tibet and Xinjiang were too remote to maintain close control, reaching the limits of imperial control in the pre-industrial era. So Beijing adopted some policy of limited ethnic autonomy. It wasn’t until recently has China begun the process of assimilation in these remote areas.
Imperial Japan’s assimilation process in Taiwan and Korea would almost have succeeded if it had not foolishly expanded the war.
Well if that is the case who were the original Han & how did they dominate the rest?
.Today there seem to be 17 sub species of Han, making up 92% of the population of China.
It is rather like the Franks, Lombards, Alemani,Visigoths,Saxons, Vandals and Suevi, who we now call Germans. Or on a smaller scale Angles, Saxons and Jutes are now English (but still really German) is it not?
The formation of the sense of Han (literally means man) originated from the contact between the Chinese agrarian peoples and the nomadic foreigners in the north.
According to China’s own history, Chinese civilisation originated in the Yellow River basin. So the North China Plain (today’s area around Henan, Hebei and Shandong) was the original Han Chinese, basically the location of the states of the “Zhou Dynasty” and the Warring States period.
Through military conquest, its overwhelming demographic advantage, and its cultural advantage over the mountain aborigines of the south and southwest. It was basically a snowballing process.
In addition, Chinese used ideograms/ pictograms as scripts. Unlike the Latin alphabet, it can hardly be used to spell other language.
Thank you.
It also ignores the Persian Empire, Greeks and Roman empire who did pretty well on the multi-cultural front.
“The principle of consensus and coexistence”, and there’s me thinking that the Mongols invaded vast areas and killed people.
Oh they did. Like that Led Zep line about the Vikings: “…So now you’d better stop, and rebuild all your ruins, For peace and trust can win the day, despite of all your losing…”
Another essay about how we all used to black, or how wonderful Islam was/is from someone with the irrelevant veneer of “genetics” expertise.
Would be better suited to the Guardian or the BBC.
‘History, It’s what you make of it.’
Just returned to this ridiculous article out of boredom….yawn…
But I much agree with the lines on a Middle Eastern antique dealer catalogue,
“But, Why Would Such a Large Empire Leave so Few Artifacts?
Despite Genghis Kahn’s greatness at conquering others, he was not a creator; he had no desire to create. Conversely, the greatest conqueror of all time was a skilled destroyer. This means that although he did indeed build a grand empire, he did not build the things that we usually assume make up an empire, such as libraries, roads, and governmental buildings. After all, he came from a nomadic culture and remained a nomad all his years. He rode from town to town and city to city conquering them and in many cases destroying them without building anything to take their places.
And that is why there are so few Genghis Kahn artifacts for us to collect.”
This guy needs to get in the ‘Decolonizing of history’ industry which has taken over our entire education system in the West, to help make sure no real history remains. I assume there is good money in the ‘Correcting’ of history if you get in with the right sort, with the right sort of political connections.
Not sure that’s the point of the piece and it certainly isn’t the point of the book. The flexible and organic nature of Ghengis Khan era Mongol society, their legal, economic and military systems, allowed them to prosper amongst different peoples in a way the Saracen and Christian could not. However the “different” people were the Mongols’ vassals who may be enslaved, expelled or killed at the whim of a Khan or his officers. Once the Mongols dropped the compromise based kuriltai decisions of Ghengis’ era for old fashioned autocracy the wheels fell off and Russia, China, Persia, Poland etc took the spoils.
Fascinating historical piece, but it makes you think that over such vast geographical territory and a very long period, so many massive events must be missing. Just think about the past 100 years: flight, genocides, medicine and technology including manned missions to the moon.
“Just think about the past 100 years: flight, genocides, medicine and technology including manned missions to the moon.”
That’s all just white saviour stuff. The really important development has been intersectionality.
It might be a good idea to remember that the “Golden Horde” had nothing we consider to be culture or civilization. No art, no philosophy, no literature, no science, no music, no mathematics, no religion, etc. Why wouldn’t they be tolerant of other cultures when they had no culture of their own? Really all they had was violence and speed. Why are we discussing them?
The Mongols were tolerant of certain things, they were certainly far more tolerant of different religions than anybody in Europe was at the same time
Because they didn’t have one, and were enthralled by others. Idiots.
There’s only one idiot here
Self praise is no recommendation Mr Jones. Surely you know that?
This is like saying the British Empire had no culture but only boats and cannons. The Mongols were incredibly successful and ruthless on the battlefield. They wrought so much damage because their excellent generals and khans won battle after battle. The Chinese, Muslim and Europeans they invaded were just as violent when on the winning side of a siege. The Mongols were happy to cherry pick from other cultures and religions, if it served their purpose. It seems an eminently sensible way to run a medieval empire spanning Eurasia. I suppose the question is why you think we shouldn’t be discussing the Mongol Empire while doing just that yourself?
You lost me there… I think everyone agrees (whether they like the British Empire or not) that the British certainly have/had a culture. All that stuff I mentioned… science, literature, philosophy, etc. Do you understand that the point is that the Mongols had NONE of it? And that’s the point. They had no culture. Which (to me at least) makes them pretty boring. The opposite of the British Empire in every way that matters. Also, do you understand the difference between discussing something and discussing why there is a discussion of that thing? hmmm…I thought not.
Deleted
Precisely, well said. Off to the dustbin of history with ‘em!
Of course they had a culture. Just not one with elements that you value. They could not have organised themselves or sustained themselves over such large spaces and for so long without ideas, customs, and social behaviour (a.k.a. “culture”) that were effective and durable.
The title “Tsar” from the Mongols??? It means Caesar, and clearly came from Byzantium, and Rome before that. The Mongols ended Chinese technical advances, and massacred and destroyed many and much. Raises questions about the whole essay…
Surely the fundamental point is that a strict position of “empire is unredeemably evil” is always wrong, and that all regimes can have good and bad consequences.
That is hardly his point. First who says ‘Empire is irredeemably evil’? Because that would be crazy. But that the Mongol empire was about as evil as any would be is what I would say, and this guy refutes it, and says the Mongols civilized the West – in a remarkably Bizarre claim.
Next, “How the Aztecs were the most enlightened civilization in the world, till destroyed by Spain”.
Really? What about all that flaying alive and then wearing the greasy skin like a wet suit?
Anyway they failed the Darwinian Test of not being
able to defend themselves from marauders who had travelled 3,000 miles to get at them.
Bravo Cortez!
I am joking, the new trend of decolonizing education means every thing a Westerner achieved, a non-Western thing which equals it must be found. I can think of no civilization less useful than the one I said above.
My humble apologies, too much Gin!
Along with the Gothic thugs who destroyed the Western Roman Empire, the Mongols were one of the most nihilistic and destructive forces in the history of mankind.
Fortunately their pernicious influence was short lived and now they are just an obscure footnote of History.
You do realise the Mongols don’t end with Genghis Khan right. Kublai Khan was certainly a more enlightened leader than anyone in medieval Europe
From the look of the illustration they also invented the crash helmet , so its not just what did the romans do for us
The Golden Horde WAS barbarous, and helped shape the early modern world. Like every other great power of the Middle Ages.
There, fixed it.
At least they gave Islam a ‘good kicking” and destroyed Bagdad and the Abbasid Caliphate in the process.
Such an interesting read, and without once mentioning the death toll. Wikipedia – I just checked – puts it at around 11 percent of the world’s population.
They don’t much sound like tolerant traders to me, more murderers who got sick of wading knee deep through blood and body parts and decided to try not killing people for a while to see if they liked it.
Yet there is perhaps a lesson to be drawn for all those for whom rape, torture, mutilation and murder sounds like a good day out – where are the Mongols now?
Vanished.
It is estimated that 1 in every 200 people in the world is a direct descendant of Genghis Khan. So Mr Prosser was not the last of his line after all. And the proof is everywhere. I surely can’t be the only one to have noticed the startling resemblence of George Galloway to the Great Khan?
Or President Putin perhaps?*
(* despite industrial level Botox on his eyes).
I can definitely see where you are coming from with Putin.
I think there is a far more striking resemblance between George Galloway and Genghis Khan’s horse’s arse.
Orc Studies (in all its forms) is a very hot discipline these days.
I thought the Romans were quite keen on religious tolerance within the Empire. One version of the Edict of Milan, issued in 313, reads: “no one whatsoever should be denied freedom to devote himself either to the cult of the Christians or to such religion as he deems best suited for himself, so that the highest divinity, to whose worship we pay allegiance with free minds, may grant us in all things his wonted favour and benevolence”
Unfortunately that all stopped from 381 onwards, thanks to Theodosius, and his punitive Edicts against so called Pagans.
Isn’t this a just so article? According to Dan Carlin, some historians estimate the Mongols killed 70 million people. Tens of millions of humans killed in an area that extended from China to Hungary would always change history. Many great cities were razed to the ground. Other historians claim the Islamic Middle east never recovered. You can say something similar about the Nazis. Once upon a time, there was a Europe with a thriving Jewish population with millions of people of different ethnicities living side by side. After WWII the European Jewish population almost disappeared and European countries became more homogenous ethnically speaking. The Nazis helped the birth of modern Europe, but are we, a better Europe?
“This is the nearly 400-page case Marie Favereau lays out in The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World — and it’s a convincing one. A professor of history at Paris Nanterre University, Favereau’s previous published work…”
So an academic could do it, too, and the article is essentially a four word critique of the argument of the 400 page book: “it’s a convincing one.”