Hackett Publishing

Spawning an empire ranging from Persia to China, Genghis Khan united a nomadic warrior culture that had lived with their agrarian neighbors through controlled and limited extortion.  This accessible book provides an introduction to the history and culture of the Steppe people from which Genghis Khan emerged, and chronicles the events that led to his being named the Great Khan.  Also included are sixteen biographical sketches, a wealth of annotated primary documents, five maps, an annotated timeline, a glossary, an annotated bibliography and several illustrations.

"[With] implications for such current themes as globalization, global villages, and global conditions for peace . . . this book tells a grand story in the brief compass of seven chapters, with a well-written historical introduction, a helpful chronology, sixteen biographies portraying the international cast of personages who traversed empires, and a glossary indispensable to a work of this nature. Twenty-one primary documents give historical credence to the Mongol story itself, a story that is told only in the oral tradition of The Secret History of the Mongols. Maps and illustrations round out the material in support of the text."
     —The History Teacher

George Lane is Lecturer in the History of the Middle East and Central Asia, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.