The Mongol Storm: Making and Breaking Empires in the Medieval Near East

A series of Mongol invasions in the 13th century brought “sudden and dramatic change” to societies stretching from Vietnam to China, the Middle East, and Europe, according to this dense and revealing study. Historian Morton (The Field of Blood) explains how the Mongols’ nomadic culture and the massive size of their armies (up to 80,000 men) gave them an advantage over the agricultural and hybrid societies they invaded, including the Khwarazmian Empire of Central Asia, the Anatolian Seljuk Sultanate, and the smaller caliphates of the Middle East. Contending that the Mongol Empire’s “greatest military strength was the sheer terror it provoked” (they reportedly slaughtered 200,000 people during the siege of Baghdad in 1258), Morton notes that many societies decided to submit rather than fight. Morton provides a wealth of evidence showing that the Mongols left “a much more connected Eurasia in their wake” by opening new trade routes to China, allowing multiple religions to coexist within their empire, and incorporating innovative military technologies from the forces they conquered. Though the byzantine details of political infighting and dynastic upheavals slow things down, this expert study casts the Middle Ages in a new light. (Nov.)