Michal Biran

Hodong Kim

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries Chinggis Khan and his progeny ruled over two-thirds of Eurasia. Connecting East, West, North and South, the Mongols integrated most of the Old World, promoting unprecedented cross-cultural contacts and triggering the reshuffle of religious, ethnic, and geopolitical identities. The Cambridge History of the Mongol Empire studies the Empire holistically in its full Eurasian context, putting the Mongols and their nomadic culture at the center. Written by an international team of more than forty leading scholars, this two-volume set provides an authoritative and multifaceted history of 'the Mongol Moment' (1206–1368) in world history and includes an unprecedented survey of the various sources for its study, textual (written in sisteen languages), archaeological, and visual. This groundbreaking Cambridge History sets a new standard for future study of the Empire. It will serve as the fundamental reference work for those interested in Mongol, Eurasian, and world history.

The Cambridge History of the Mongol Empire 2 Volumes

The book considers the political, institutional and cultural histories of the Qara Khitai.

Between China and the Islamic World

The Empire of the Qara Khitai in Eurasian History

Reuven Amitai

Since the first millennium BCE, nomads of the Eurasian steppe have played a key role in world history and the development of adjacent sedentary regions, especially China, India, the Middle East, and Eastern and Central Europe. Although their more settled neighbors often saw them as an ongoing threat and imminent danger—“barbarians,” in fact—their impact on sedentary cultures was far more complex than the raiding, pillaging, and devastation with which they have long been associated in the popular imagination. The nomads were also facilitators and catalysts of social, demographic, economic, and cultural change, and nomadic culture had a significant influence on that of sedentary Eurasian civilizations, especially in cases when the nomads conquered and ruled over them. Not simply passive conveyors of ideas, beliefs, technologies, and physical artifacts, nomads were frequently active contributors to the process of cultural exchange and change. Their active choices and initiatives helped set the cultural and intellectual agenda of the lands they ruled and beyond. This volume brings together a distinguished group of scholars from different disciplines and cultural specializations to explore how nomads played the role of “agents of cultural change.” The beginning chapters examine this phenomenon in both east and west Asia in ancient and early medieval times, while the bulk of the book is devoted to the far flung Mongol empire of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. This comparative approach, encompassing both a lengthy time span and a vast region, enables a clearer understanding of the key role that Eurasian pastoral nomads played in the history of the Old World. It conveys a sense of the complex and engaging cultural dynamic that existed between nomads and their agricultural and urban neighbors, and highlights the non-military impact of nomadic culture on Eurasian history. Nomads as Agents of Cultural Change illuminates and complicates nomadic roles as active promoters of cultural exchange within a vast and varied region. It makes available important original scholarship on the new turn in the study of the Mongol empire and on relations between the nomadic and sedentary worlds.

The Mongols and Their Eurasian Predecessors

Nomads as Agents of Cultural Change

Meir Shahar

Rotem Kowner

Guy Bar-Oz

Gideon Shelach-Lavi

This edited collection offers a comprehensive overview of the different aspects of human-animal interactions in Asia throughout history. With twelve thematically-arranged chapters, this book examines the diverse roles that beasts, livestock, and fish — real and metaphorical– have played in Asian history, society, and culture. Ranging from prehistory to the present day, the authors address a wealth of topics including the domestication of animals, dietary practices and sacrifice, hunting, the use of animals in war, and the representation of animals in literature and art. Providing a unique perspective on human interaction with the environment, the volume is cross-disciplinary in its reach, offering enriching insights to the fields of animal ethics, Asian studies, world history and more.

Historical, Cultural and Ethical Perspectives

Animals and Human Society in Asia

Jörg Rüpke

Yuri Pines

The first comparative study to explore the dynamics of expansion and contraction of major continental empires in Eurasia.

Eurasian Empires Compared

The Limits of Universal Rule

Chinggis Khan was perhaps the most influential man of the last millennium, and yet he was not a Muslim. So, why is he included in a series profiling Makers of the Muslim World? In this novel perspective on a much-maligned figure, Michal Biran explains the monumental impact Chinggis Khan had upon the Islamic World, both positive and negative. Often criticized as a mass-slaughterer, pillager, and arch-enemy of the faith, Biran shows that his constructive influence upon Islam was also considerable - his legacy apparent in Central Asia even today.

Chinggis Khan

Francesca Fiaschetti

Jonathan Brack

During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Chinggis Khan and his heirs established the largest contiguous empire in the history of the world, extending from Korea to Hungary and from Iraq, Tibet, and Burma to Siberia. Ruling over roughly two thirds of the Old World, the Mongol Empire enabled people, ideas, and objects to traverse immense geographical and cultural boundaries. Along the Silk Roads in Mongol Eurasia reveals the individual stories of three key groups of people--military commanders, merchants, and intellectuals--from across Eurasia. These annotated biographies bring to the fore a compelling picture of the Mongol Empire from a wide range of historical sources in multiple languages, providing important insights into a period unique for its rapid and far-reaching transformations. Read together or separately, they offer the perfect starting point for any discussion of the Mongol Empire's impact on China, the Muslim world, and the West and illustrate the scale, diversity, and creativity of the cross-cultural exchange along the continental and maritime Silk Roads. Features and Benefits: Synthesizes historical information from Chinese, Arabic, Persian, and Latin sources that are otherwise inaccessible to English-speaking audiences. Presents in an accessible manner individual life stories that serve as a springboard for discussing themes such as military expansion, cross-cultural contacts, migration, conversion, gender, diplomacy, transregional commercial networks, and more. Each chapter includes a bibliography to assist students and instructors seeking to further explore the individuals and topics discussed. Informative maps, images, and tables throughout the volume supplement each biography.

Michal Biran

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