The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire
The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire
The Mongol queens of the thirteenth century ruled the largest empire the world has ever known. Yet sometime near the end of the century, censors cut a section from The Secret History of the Mongols, leaving a single tantalizing quote from Genghis Khan: “Let us reward our female offspring.” Only this hint of a father’s legacy for his daughters remained of a much larger story.
The queens of the Silk Route turned their father’s conquests into the world’s first truly international empire, fostering trade, education, and religion throughout their territories and creating an economic system that stretched from the Pacific to the Mediterranean. Outlandish stories of these powerful queens trickled out of the Empire, shocking the
List Price: $ 26.00
Price: $ 9.55
Related The Queen Products
A wonderful history…,
Jack Weatherford’s Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World was a fascinating look at the man who conquered Asia and commanded an empire unlike any that had gone before. Weatherford continues his analysis in The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire.
When hearing the name of the 13th century conqueror, Genghis Khan, one doesn’t normally think of his daughters as the reason his empire continued and expanded. Khan’s four sons were basically worthless preferring to drink, fight and engage in other dissolute behavior. Khan’s daughters are the ones that saved his legacy. History is unclear on much of their lives and even then number of daughters he had.
Khan, with exquisite strategy, married his daughters off to rulers along the Silk Road. He then sent their husbands off to war leaving the daughter to rule. With their power, they were able to strengthen his empire through education, religion, and trade; making the Silk Road and the surrounding territories a cohesive unit. The daughters were strong warriors and from their female descendants the Mongolian empire flourished.
If you have a liking or passion for Khan and his strategy, the history of the Mongolian Empire or women who changed history, this book will be at the top of your to-be-read pile. I would say I have a “middling” knowledge of Mongolia past and present, and the book could be a little confusing with the wealth of information, strange names and places etc. I’m hoping to go to Mongolia in the fall and my knowledge of the area through this historic telling as well as his first book certainly has increased my appreciation of how that area of the world was formed!
This book is incredibly rich in detail and history. Weatherford writes a fascinating story. It is well-researched and documented, but most importantly it is readable and not a dry rendition of the facts that make up history. Weatherford states that much about the Queens is unknown or lost to history’s variances, but he does a wonderful job of linking the information that exists in a logical and sensible manner which makes sense in the context of Khan and his goals. You get a real sense of how these women changed history and took their father’s legacy to the next level.
Was this review helpful to you?
|Easy to Comprehend and a Joy to Read,
After reading Jack Weatherford’s “Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World” I went and pre-ordered this book – and I wasn’t disappointed.
The author tells a gripping story of lost history and the role the female heirs of Genghis Khan played in his Empire. While the Great Kahn was out conquering the world, his wives and daughters managed his empire, created bureaucracies, public projects and kept trade relationships alive. In a stroke of genius, Genghis Kahn married his daughters to men who ruled strategic points along the famous Silk Road which not only lent him eyes and ears in those important locations, but also established his presence even though he wasn’t physically there.
These daughters weren’t the timid kind; they were strong, independent women who inherited their father’s political cunningness and warrior spirit. However, after Genghis Khan’s death these strong women, daughters, sisters and sisters-in-law began a power struggle which lasted for centuries and eventually almost destroyed the Empire their father has built.
The book tells an astonishing tale of a once world wide Empire being torn apart by inept rulers, sibling rivalry and incompetent leaders (something I’m sure most of us can relate to) pitting mothers against sons and brothers against sisters.
The book ends with the astonishing tale of Queen Mandhuhai the Wise who reunited the Mongols while fighting the Chinese Ming dynasty and the Muslim warlords. Her successful campaigns, which she waged even when pregnant, promoted China to erect the Great Wall and preserved peace for her children and the nation.
Jack Weatherford writes in a style which transcends dry facts and dates, he brings the stories to life while drawing lines between events and people. The author realizes the names are difficult for the English speaking natives and reminds the reader every now and then who a character is when he/she reappears several pages later, which is fantastic. The information is presented in a manner which is not only linear, but also follows a certain path – which makes this book easy to comprehend and a joy to read.
Was this review helpful to you?
|recovering history,
It has to be difficult to write a historical book for lay people. We are looking for a story and not the random messiness of life. Jack Weatherford manages to keep a focused eye on the women in Genghis Khan family and he manages to tie things together at the end as if this was a novel with a beginning, middle, and end. I read two-thirds of this book on one rainy day.
Some details are as amazing as history can be. Genghis Khan tells his daughters at their arranged marriages that the couple must be two shafts of one cart. “If a two shaft cart breaks the second shaft, the ox cannot pull it.” He also says, “whoever can keep a house in order, can keep a territory in order.” The women ran the regions that they were assigned and their husbands were drawn off to be the Khan’s generals. The sons-in-law had the honor of marrying into the Khan’s family, but they were taken away from their seat of power into the army. Power was left in the daughters’ hands. The sexual politics are also a bit different in this time period when women had more autonomy.
Like any political and battle-filled novel, this one has its villains. After the Khan dies, his sons set about destroying the Mongol nation in their lust for power. The daughters-in-law destroy what the sons don’t destroy in their attempts to secure their sons’ inheritance. Some of the ways that they murder their enemies is described and it is horrendous. Even with all that, the Mongols do become rulers of China for a time before they are kicked back out to the steppes.
Weatherford brings us our “happy” ending by bringing back to life one of the last great Queens of Genghis Khan’s line. When her husband is murdered, she has the choice of marrying the war leader or taking the tribe back to china to be vassals. She decides to rule instead.
As it happens, one of my roommates at LSU was Mongolian. I wish that I could press this book into her hands now. I think that she would love it.
Was this review helpful to you?
|