Good biographies for Genghis Khan?

Haruko · Post by **Haruko** » 2008-05-22 12:49pm

Being interested in reading a biography of Genghis Khan, but having no idea which ones that exist do the best job in its treatment of the man both in its scope and in its quality, I'm submitting this topic in the hopes that some history fans here will be able to give me recommendations.

Maxentius · Post by **Maxentius** » 2008-05-22 12:57pm

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford may be a good start. It's a little biased in trying to dispel the notion that Genghis Khan was a rapacious, brute conqueror, but it's well researched and easy to read, if a little brief for my tastes.

Kanastrous · Post by **Kanastrous** » 2008-05-22 01:20pm

I'm reading that right now.

Thumbs up.

Falkenhorst · Post by **Falkenhorst** » 2008-06-04 11:17pm

I just finished "Genghis: Birth of an Empire", a somewhat fictionalized account of Temujin's life before he united his people and formed the Mongol Empire. The author's name was Conn Iggulden.

Eleventh Century Remnant · Post by **Eleventh Century Remnant** » 2008-06-05 07:39am

The motherlode is Ata-Malik Al-Juvaini's 'Genghis Khan; a history of the world- conqueror', my copy was translated J.A Boyle, published Manchester University Press. Ratchnevsky's 'Genghis Khan' is good too, Blackwell Press. Theres a more recent biography, 2006 I think, that talks more about the historiography, michael Man, also titled 'Genghis Khan'.

Conn Iggulden is a literary prostitute of the first order. He is the Michael Bay of historical fiction. I despise him.

Companion Cube · Post by **Companion Cube** » 2008-06-05 12:25pm

Falkenhorst wrote:I just finished "Genghis: Birth of an Empire", a somewhat fictionalized account of Temujin's life before he united his people and formed the Mongol Empire. The author's name was Conn Iggulden.

I think this is the one where, in the author's note at the end, he mentions he cut one of Genghis Khan's brothers, Belgutei, from the storyline because he never did anything important.

Conn Iggulden is a literary prostitute of the first order. He is the Michael Bay of historical fiction. I despise him.

Could you elaborate? I know barely anything about this period of history, and I love hearing about authors doing shitty jobs.

Big Orange · Post by **Big Orange** » 2008-06-10 07:47am

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World was very good, even though Jack Weatherford's occasional rationalizations for Mongolia's imperious brutality and comparisons to Neoconservatism is somewhat disturbing (but put things in perspective, when their enemies were not much better morally and they had a very lucky streak like the Nazis Germans did between 1938 and 1941).

Maxentius · Post by **Maxentius** » 2008-06-10 09:15am

Big Orange wrote:Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World was very good, even though Jack Weatherford's occasional rationalizations for Mongolia's imperious brutality and comparisons to Neoconservatism is somewhat disturbing (but put things in perspective, when their enemies were not much better morally and they had a very lucky streak like the Nazis Germans did between 1938 and 1941).

It really is disturbing. Some of his conclusions are kind of interesting (the astronomy one, in particular, I thought was actually quite possible), but with the majority of the rest, you can tell he's really, really reaching.

For those who haven't read the book, Weatherford pretty much tries to pin almost every positive cultural/economic/socio-political/scientific development of Western Europe during the Age of Discovery and Renaissance as having its ultimate origin within the Mongol Empire.