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Morris Rossabi

Auteur van Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times

15+ Werken 530 Leden 8 Besprekingen

Over de Auteur

Morris Rossabi, PhD, is Distinguished Professor of History at City University of New York and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University. He is the author of several celebrated works on Asian history and has collaborated on exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Bevat de namen: M Rossabi, Moris Rosabi

Fotografie: Morris Rossabi. Photo from the faculty pages of Queens College CUNY.

Werken van Morris Rossabi

Gerelateerde werken

De wonderen van de Orient (1298) — Redacteur, sommige edities5,034 exemplaren
Mongolia (Enchantment of the World) (2017) — Consultant, sommige edities10 exemplaren

Tagged

Algemene kennis

Geboortedatum
1941
Geslacht
male
Nationaliteit
USA
Geboorteplaats
Alexandria, Egypt
Woonplaatsen
New York, New York, USA
Beroepen
professor
historian
Organisaties
Queens College, City University of New York
Columbia University
China Institute. School of Chinese Studies
Korte biografie
Morris Rossabi is Distinguished Professor of history at the City University of New York and Columbia University. [retrieved from Amazon 1/29/2012]

Born in Alexandria, Egypt in 1941, Morris Rossabi is the author of numerous books.   Visiting professor of East Asian and Central Asian History at Columbia University and Professor of History at Columbia University and Professor of History at Queens College of the City University of New York, he was formerly the director of the School of Chinese Studies at the China Institute.  He conducts research in nine languages, travels extensively, and lives in New York City.   [adapted from Voyager from Xanadu (1992)]

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Besprekingen

I first read this in 2010 for a class. I picked it up again in December 2019 for a refresher given the exacerbated turmoil in Xinjiang this year. Sadly this book is quite outdated and not as helpful as I had hoped. (much of the fieldwork took place in the 90s) Perhaps we will see a new edition soon.
 
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sparemethecensor | Dec 30, 2019 |
Rossabi's book has a rather discursive format, with discussion of sources and their possible biases; something I normally like, but Rossabi takes it to an excess. Noting once that the Yuan Shi* has a Confucian bias is good; occasionally reminding the reader of the same doesn't hurt; but bringing it up time and again when we were reminded of it on the previous page gets tedious. Rossabi is also overly concerned with moral judgment, and moreover wishy-washy in applying it, often ending up with a noncommital on the one side, one the other.

These flaws are by no means fatal - while the book could have been better, I don't regret buying it and it certainly left me better informed on the subject. But it's not a book to be read for pure reading pleasure, I doubt it'll appeal to anyone not interested in the old khan and his world for their own sake.

* The official history of the Yuan - sc. Mongol - dynasty.
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AndreasJ | 2 andere besprekingen | Nov 11, 2014 |
Like all of this series, this book tries to condense a big subject into a small space. It does this admirably by outlines Mongol culture, how Chinggis Khan came to power within that culture, how he conquered large parts of Asia, what his descendants did and why it all fell apart after about a century. That's a lot to cover, so the book is necessarily light on some details.

While the section on Mongol culture provides some nice context to Chinggis Khan's rise, the actual rise was more interesting. Rossabi shows that he was a great warrior and a great leader, but he was also a clever politician and completely devoid of scruples. He would betray anyone who was in his way, yet he was still able to get people to make alliances with him. I might have been wary of him after he stabbed a few other allies in the back, but apparently Chinggis was very persuasive.

There isn't as much about Mongol warfare as I would have liked, although the author does point out that they were very flexible and more than willing to use foreigners as a source of expertise. He does show that as Chinggis's descendants settled down, most of them lost their Mongol ways and some of their battle skills. They weren't particularly good administrators and constant warfare between Mongol khanates sapped their strength. The Golden Hoard lasted the longest, but lost its dominance of Russia within a few generations of Chinggis's death.

The Mongols' biggest influences was not intentional. The first was that they tore down the existing political structures in China, the middle east and Russia. They tried to replace them, but when Mongol power faded, each area created a new empire (some tried to be like the pre-Mongol ones), but those new empires were substantially different than those that the Mongols destroyed. Also, the Mongols provided a great deal of security for the Silk Road, making it much safer than at any time in the past. The collapse of the Mongol empires undercut that security, but it had whet the appetite in the middle east and Europe for good from east Asia. To satiate that appetite, Europeans would eventually try to find a way to China and India that cut out the middle east.

This is a great introduction to the Mongols. It isn't as thorough as others, but that is a product of the enforced brevity. I highly recommend it if you want a quick start on the subject.
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Scapegoats | 1 andere bespreking | Oct 27, 2014 |

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Statistieken

Werken
15
Ook door
2
Leden
530
Populariteit
#46,961
Waardering
½ 3.6
Besprekingen
8
ISBNs
52
Talen
3

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