One more in the author's well-known series on the Mongols, this book elicits mixed reactions. It is beautifully written as were the previous volumes, and is a comfortable and fast read. The book reinforces the message that the Mongols under Genghis Khan were not only a massive conquering force in the pre-medieval world, but also introduced a more tolerant and all-inclusive environment for diverse religions to exist and practice. However, at times the author seems to be projecting his own tolerant philosophy rather than describing Genghis Khan's world-view. What is not addressed is, how could such an expansive and well-informed philosophical bent of mind be fused with the readiness to use such extremes of cruelty and blood-thirstiness in dealing with the conquered peoples, meting out utter destruction to both military and civilians. Our problem with the author's wholesale endorsement is that all the philosophy and the ethical precepts of Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Christianity (and Islam) do not appear to have been integrated into the actions of the Mongols, in relation to the conquered aliens or even among themselves. This may be contrasted to the transformation of Asoka in the Indian world, after the mass killings in the Kalinga war. Many centuries prior to Genghis, Asoka had already proclaimed the tolerance of all sects and beliefs in his realm, and the exhortation not to hurt the sentiments of people by criticizing their beliefs. Kings in India ended their lives as ascetics, but this was never an option for the Mongols, who have therefore left very little for the world to emulate in terms of building a free and just society (in my opinion). ( )

The book was average. The introduction of the book hints at a tantalizing connection between Genghis Khan, John Locke (originally from a footnote of Gibbon's decline and fall of rome) and Thomas Jefferson but quickly turns into a rather conventional biography. Weatherford draws a connection between Jefferson and Genghis Khan that isn't even that convincing. Weatherford shows that Jefferson owned and distributed copies of a biography of Genghis Khan and Jefferson's wording for the Virginian Statute for Religious Freedom shares similarities with the laws of Genghis Khan but this connection seems tenuous at best.

The book is a biography of Genghis Khan with a special focus on the religions of his empire along with some of the conflicts that occurred during and after his reign. Weatherford is a decent writer, but the book is filled with cliche and seems light on scholarship. I picked up the book rather excited because I briefly studied the tolerant laws of Genghis Khan towards religion and the diversity that his administration had. I don't know much about central asian history, so I learned a lot about the various tribes, civilizations and religions that Genghis Khan came into contact with and incorporated into his empire. A constantly surprising theme of the book are the complex history and unexpected interconnections that should humble any student of history. For example, some of the first works in Mongolian script was Aseop's Fables and the Romance of Alexander (a story about Alexander the Great) because the Uyghurs who developed Mongolian script had come in contact with Hellenistic influences. Or that when Genghis overthrew his overlord of the Christian overlord Toghrul, some Europeans thought Genghis was the mystical Pester John, a Christian king from the east that would help them in the war against Muslims. If anything, the book should be read to clarify all the nuances of history that do not fit easily simple narratives and broad strokes. However, even with the limited knowledge I have of the history of this era, I understand that the scholarship of nomadic peoples has always been controversial and that there are real scholarly disagreements over just the identity of certain tribes. Weatherford glosses over this and makes some barefaced assertions that someone with more knowledge might disagree with. For example, he identifies the Huns with the Xiongnu and the Uyghur Empire with the Uyghurs in modern Western China but both of these historical facts are disputed. The book is generally more conventional biography than a rigorous scholarly work.

Maybe my expectations were too high, but the book was not the penetrating scholarly work or analysis that I hoped for. A fun brainless read. ( )

Jack Weatherford’s standing among historians has improved. In recent books by newer scholars I see him used and referenced without comment. Others are still averse: Morris Rossabi – whose work on the Mongols in China itself broke down prejudices and saw with new eyes – makes snipey remarks about the influence of Weatherford in forwards and prefaces, from the 2nd edition of his Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times, 20th Anniversary Edition, With a New Preface in 2009 to How Mongolia Matters: War, Law, and Society in 2017.

There are reasons for this.

One, Weatherford was an anthropologist. Historians can be resistant to other disciplines, to interdisciplinary perspectives, sadly. To my disenchantment I’ve found this out myself with literary criticism: so much to offer to the study of history, yet I’ve seen non-acceptance, even hostility. Anthropology, like literary studies, has a huge amount to offer history, and Mongol history specifically.

Two, when Weatherford prepared himself to write about Mongols, he began to learn Mongolian (he says it took him ten years to reach proficiency). Whereas received wisdom among Mongolists has said you need to learn Chinese, Persian, and six other languages but ‘funnily enough’ (actual quote), Mongolian is the one language you don’t need to learn, because (roughly quoted) there’s nothing in it. Well, Weatherford still relies on translations for the Persian and Chinese sources etc., and to historians this is the mark of a popular historian, a populariser. Actually he isn’t what we call a populariser (of academic work), because although he wrote for a wide audience from the start, his content has original investigation and interpretation – none more than in this book. And Weatherford constantly talks up new Mongolian scholarship, expresses the hope that his tentative ideas will be quickly superseded by young Mongolian scholars. That’s his answer to ‘knows Mongolian, doesn’t know the languages of the usual sources’.

But one effect may be obvious: if you dwell always in the Persian and Chinese sources, and Armenian and Latin – the languages of conquered peoples and other enemies of the Mongols – you’re going to escape with difficulty from their negative slant. Mongol Studies in the 21st century has found its way out of that negative slant and shed a lot of prejudice. But you can see that history being written by the losers in this case has been the main problem and remains one. Meanwhile you’ve probably heard what a resurgence Chinggis Khaan enjoys in his own country and how positively they view him. So Weatherford, reading Mongolian, and now residing in Mongolia, fairly inevitably still startles the publishing world with his positivity. He’s coming from a Mongolian place. And that may need a pinch of salt. But you know what else needs salt, like silos of it? The arrogance in that ‘except Mongolian, which you don’t need to learn – nothing’s written in it’. The dismissal of Mongolian scholarship as too positive. As if scholars in the UK, US, Australia, do not do exactly the same with their main nation-building figures. It is a struggle in these places to see and present to the public the bad side of your own history. Let’s not have the double standards to lecture Mongolians about that. When the qualifications have been ‘to learn every language except Mongolian’, how are Western scholars to know what goes on in Mongolian, anyway? Things they may have been missing, Weatherford brings to attention, and this too makes his books seem odd to them.

Onto the book. It is rich in sources, like Weatherford’s others but increasingly. Often these are Mongolian histories written in the 16th, 17th, and on to the 19th centuries. The 16th-17th century histories are post-Buddhist conversion and re-mythologise in Buddhist terms. This means they are often left aside as anachronistic, but Weatherford quotes them as part of the story of how Mongols have remembered Chinggis and told his legend. He then speaks of the European and American 18th century, when Genghis (known as Zingis then or else Genghiscan the Great) was discovered in a big way and before the 19th century kicked in with its race science that made Europeans despise Asians in new ways. Much of the European 18th century material is laudatory of Zingis and fascinated by his achievements – more impressive than Alexander, in war and peace, was not an uncommon thing to say (you don’t expect to hear that post-19th century, do you, that Genghis was a better man than Alexander?). There is a gulf in treatment of him between the 18th century and us, and I can only explain the change by 19th century race science. And perhaps by the 20th century world wars, but that’s another argument. Quest for God’s subtitle is overblown for me, but Weatherford’s text does not make gigantic claims: mostly he points out the fashion for Zingis in the 18thC and how the Mongols got drawn into the idea of religious freedom of conscience, awakening in Europe at that time. Here was a practical, operating example of a government over many faiths succeeding with a policy of religious toleration and plurality. Gibbon has a famous sentence but he wasn’t on his own. The focus on how Genghis brought ‘religious freedom’ isn’t Weatherford’s, it’s the European and American 18th century’s.

The book is both a history of religions before, in and around the Mongol Empire, and a spiritual biography of Genghis Khan. The best conventional biography is Michal Biran, Chinggis Khan. Bad ones are legion. Weatherford’s (what else?) is an unconventional biography, an attempt to piece together his inner life, particularly around beliefs, morality, conduct, and explanations of the world – the ‘religious’ issues. As usual with a Weatherford book, I find a hundred places to discuss or disagree, but the point is, nobody else even tries to write an inner-life biography. And yet we have the materials.

One regret. I wish he wouldn’t use ‘nation’ for the Mongol ulus or whatever, in the way he does. ‘Nation’ is too 19th-century and cannot escape an ethnic flavour unless he makes plain at every turn (in my favourite quote from In the Service of the Khan: Eminent Personalities of the Early Mongol-Yüan Period):

The Mongol conquest was more than merely a Mongol affair. From the start, it was a grand enterprise in which a galaxy of personages from many races and cultures participated, but always under Mongol leadership... The enlistment by the Mongols of so many people of such diverse backgrounds in one grand common enterprise apparently has no historical precedent, and should be counted as one of the main reasons for whatever success was achieved by the Mongols. -p. xiii

This matters when Weatherford claims Mongols worshipped the nation in place of a state religion, because his description can sound a bit fash. Now when the Russian arm of the Worldwide Fascist Resurgence is recruiting Genghis – true, not so much for ethno-nationalism but for authoritarianism and ‘strongman’ physicality – we don’t need misunderstandings. Don’t feed the fash. ( )

Who new that Ghengis Khan inspired Jefferson’s views on religious freedom? ( )