Alice's review
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
by Jack Weatherford
Alice's review
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford
Alice's review
rating:
bookshelves:
read-in-2007
My initial impression upon reading the Introduction was, whoa, HOLD it there, those are some bold claims you're making. The author's essential thesis: Genghis and the Mongol empire was an extraordinary, civilizing influence and shaped the modern world. Had Weatherford fallen into the biographers' trap of looking at their subjects through colored lenses? The Intro was all Mongol Empire Was Good, and it made me suspicious.
The rest of the book did not really dispel those suspicions, which made it hard to believe the author's arguments. The author struck me as the harken-back-to-the-olden-days idealist type who bemoaned the 'fences, electric lines, and other scars of the modern landscape' (that's not an exact quote, but it's close to it) and wanted to return to the days of free roaming on the steppes amongst the animals, waving Genghis Khan's spirit banner.
The pro-Genghis bias showed through particularly when the author purposefully contrasted Genghis's anti-torture and pro...more
The rest of the book did not really dispel those suspicions, which made it hard to believe the author's arguments. The author struck me as the harken-back-to-the-olden-days idealist type who bemoaned the 'fences, electric lines, and other scars of the modern landscape' (that's not an exact quote, but it's close to it) and wanted to return to the days of free roaming on the steppes amongst the animals, waving Genghis Khan's spirit banner.
The pro-Genghis bias showed through particularly when the author purposefully contrasted Genghis's anti-torture and pro...more
