The Mongols and the West, 1221–1410 By Peter Jackson. Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2005. Pp xxxiv + 414. ISBN 0 582 36896 0. £17.99 (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Mongol Storms: Making and Breaking Empires in the Medieval Near East, 2022
The Mongol Storm: Making and Breaking Empires in the Medieval Near East by Dr Nicholas Morton offers a comprehensive re-evaluation of the Mongol conquests, emphasizing their transformative impact on the political and social landscape of the medieval Near East. By shifting the focus away from traditional Eurocentric narratives, Morton highlights the significance of the Mongols' interactions with various societies, including the Byzantines, Seljuk Turks, Mamluks, and the Latin East. His accessible writing style and balanced perspective provide readers with a nuanced understanding of how the Mongol conquests were both brutal and instrumental in fostering cultural and political exchanges. Morton's expertise in Crusades' history enriches the narrative, allowing him to expertly weave together the complex military tactics, political strategies, and cultural dynamics that defined this period. The book's chronological structure guides readers through the Mongols' westward expansion, while Morton's storytelling makes the intricate historical events engaging and accessible to both scholars and general readers. "The Mongol Storm" stands out for its ability to connect the Mongol Empire's far-reaching influence with the broader context of medieval history, making it a valuable resource for those interested in a deeper understanding of the era.
Between about 1300 and 1500, the most inclusive and detailed representations of the Eurasian oikoumene-the known, inhabited, and inhabitable parts of the world 2-were shaped by migrating worldviews based on knowledge structures that had been created, aggregated, and disseminated over many centuries. These structures emerged in the contexts of trade, war, religious proselytism, forced diasporas, and nomadism, and they involved many civilizations and peoples. The expansion of the Mongols in thirteenth-and fourteenth-century Eurasia and the foundation of the Mongol-Chinese Yuan dynasty (1271-1368) were two fundamental events in these shifts and developments. In the course of the fifteenth century, when the Mongol Empire had already broken up and a new dynasty, the Ming, was ruling in China, this accumulation of knowledge allowed the design of worldviews that would in turn play a crucial role in the coming age of maritime expansion in Europe and Asia. The fracturing and subsequent disappearance of the Mongol Empire and its cultural and administrative infrastructures have obscured its cultural dimensions and legacy, as have historiographies, both European and Asian, which since the nineteenth century have favored histories shaped by national political contexts. The problem is complex, especially if we consider the high rate of loss of the libraries, archives, and material cultures of the Mongol-Chinese Yuan dynasty, often treated as a Cinderella (as Morris Rossabi puts it), a stepsister in the study of China, when compared to the Song (960-1279) and Ming (1368-1644) dynasties. 3 In order to highlight one forgotten legacy of the Mongol Empire, this essay develops a comparative cultural study of Fra Mauro's mappa mundi, drawn in Venice c. 1450, with text in the Venetian vernacular (fig. 1), and the "Map of the Lands in a Single Extension and of the Capitals of the Kingdoms of the Past Dynasties" (混一疆理歷代國都之圖 Honil Gangni Yeokdae Gukdo Ji Do) 4 , currently held at the Ryukoku University in Kyoto (hereafter Ryukoku Gangnido). 5 266 ANGELO CATTANEO This was designed in Korea around 1480 6 but based on a lost prototype made in 1402, ten years after the foundation of the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910) (fig. 2). It is the oldest surviving East Asian map to represent not only Eastern Asia but also the Caspian region, Persia, the Arabian peninsula, Europe, and Africa. This significant expansion of geographical knowledge in East Asia was made possible by Islamic scholars who reached Khanbaliq (also known as Dadu 大都, the capital of the Mongol Empire established by Khubilai Khan around 1272) after the conquest of Persia and fall of Baghdad, the capital of the caliphate, in 1258. 7
The Mongol World edited by Timothy May & Michael Hope TOC
The Mongol World, 2022
Drawing upon research carried out in several different languages and across a variety of disciplines, The Mongol World documents how Mongol rule shaped the trajectory of Eurasian history from Central Europe to the Korean Peninsula, from the thirteenth century to the fifteenth century. Contributing authors consider how intercontinental environmental, economic, and intellectual trends affected the Empire as a whole and, where appropriate, situate regional political, social, and religious shifts within the context of the broader Mongol Empire. Issues pertaining to the Mongols and their role within the societies that they conquered therefore take precedence over the historical narratives of those societies. Alongside the formation, conquests, administration, and political structure of the Mongol Empire, the second section examines archaeology and art history, family and royal households, science and exploration, and religion, which provides greater insight into the social history of the Empire-an aspect often neglected by traditional dynastic and political histories. With 58 chapters written by both senior and early-career scholars, the volume is an essential resource for all students and scholars who study the Mongol Empire from its origins to its disintegration and legacy.