It is a good thing that two major contributors to Mongol-era scholarship – Ruth W. Dunnell and Michal Biran – have produced handy biographies of Chinggis Khan – handy for student use, as this one is intended: neither seem distributed more widely, although Biran and Dunnell are certainly the most informed and trustworthy of Chinggis biographers, and both are readable (made to be readable by students). Student-use books on the Mongols seem to be in a healthy state: George Lane turns them out, on the side from his forefront academic books.

It pains me that outside of set texts for courses, I suppose, people are more likely to pick up a mass-marketed biography. I’ll try not to be heavy-handed on this, but can I just say: take these excerpts from 2014-15 bios for the popular market –

In Europe, the Romans left vast amounts of hardware — roads, building, aqueducts, stadia — but they also rewrote Europe’s software: language, art, literature, law ... Alexander flashed across the skies of history like a comet, yet he left a lasting light. The British were in India for 200 years and the cultures are still interfused… the Romans, the Greeks and the British had something to say... The Mongols didn’t. – John Man, The Mongol Empire

(I haven’t recovered from that last sentence. I have a lot to say about it, too much for this venue)

While the Mongols’ military achievements were stupendous, they were otherwise totally parasitic. They were unoriginal, founded no new religions, produced no worthwhile cultural artefacts, developed no new crops or technologies (though they transmitted existing ones), created no worthwhile painting, pottery, architecture or literature and did not even bake bread; they essentially relied on the captive craftsmen and experts for everything. – Frank McLynn, Genghis Khan

(Bah. Even in pottery, in fact, the Mongols have plenty to boast about: see my review ___ The Mongol Century)

You see that these guys are judging against the world’s sedentary empires? These nomads did not even bake bread – a pathetic performance from them. I bet the Greeks didn’t even make ayrag, though the Scythians were there to teach them.

Whereas Ruth Dunnell says this:

Thus, in our global understanding, the historical identity of Eurasia’s nomads has advanced from ‘natural catastrophes’ to facilitators of intercultural or interregional exchange… Understanding how and why all of this happened requires deeper explanations, ones which may show that nomads did not simply ‘facilitate’ exchange between sedentary peoples by transporting goods across inhospitable terrain, but indeed created and shaped the very terms of exchange in the course of building states, for example, to solve their own internal historical dilemmas.

Ruth Dunnell also says, endearingly, in her author’s preface: It also reflects my belief that the history of those peoples, Eurasian steppe nomads and Mongols among them, operated according to principles that we are only beginning to understand, and that the more we try to uncover their dynamics, the better we will understand our own histories.

The above quote examples the strength of Dunnell’s book, too: it is aimed at World History courses, and that world-historical setting does nothing but profit Mongol study – the best way to meet the Mongols these days is through World History texts or websites or courses (= hope for the future). Dunnell explains that the world history approach has changed how we look at Mongols (ie. we no longer look for and see the lack of monuments and other sedentary-empire signifiers from this nomad people – we look at communications and exchange and see what sedentary empires have not prepared us to understand). The series in which this is an entry, world biography (interesting list of other entries), the individual as interpreter of his/her times, points to another strength: the historical issues that his life throws up or expresses. In short, context, contextual analysis, is the strength of this biography.

Its weakness? For me, Chinggis the person. It is not as if we don’t have raw material on Chinggis the person – we have The Secret History of the Mongols, but this has not been exploited to its full value and is not here. Such is my conviction, anyway. It doesn’t help, for me, that she uses the Igor de Rachewiltz translation as ‘authoritative’: I find his translation over-interpretive (not literal enough) and the interpretations rough and ready. That may be blasphemy in Mongol studies but I can’t help it. Our raw sources on Chinggis remain underutilized – that isn’t a blasphemy but can be asserted as a truth. I don’t feel the sources (the Secret History, specifically) are as sensitively used, either here or in IdR’s extensive commentary, as they might be, to yeild us a picture of Chinggis; but the background work hasn’t been done, to support such books as this; I hope it’s the next thing to take off in Mongol studies. ( )