Genghis Khan - creator of the greatest empire the world has ever seen - is one of history's immortals. In Central Asia, they still use his name to frighten children. In China, he is honoured as the founder of a dynasty. In Mongolia he is the father of the nation. In the USA, Time magazine, voted Genghis Khan 'the most important person of the last millennium'. But how much do we really know about this man? How is it that an unlettered, unsophisticated warrior-nomad came to have such a profound effect on world politics that his influence can still be felt some 800 years later? How he united the deeply divided Mongol peoples and went on to rule an empire that stretched from China in the east to Poland in the west (one substantially larger than Rome's at its zenith) is an epic tale of martial genius and breathtaking cruelty. John Man's towering achievement in this book, enriched by his experiences in China and Mongolia today, is to bring this little-known story vividly and viscerally to life.
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Man posits that this engrossing book is the result of his ambition to travel to somewhere remote, and that Mongolia, China, and the Gobi Desert are such places. He maintains that secrecy is an important theme of the book: how and where Genghis Khan died, and how and where he was buried. Man chronicles the early history of Mongolia, the coming of the Mongols' conquests of China and other Asian kingdoms, and what he calls the Muslim holocaust. He cites that "there were 100,000 to 150,000 soldiers, each with two or three horses . . . they could cover 100 kilometers a day, cross deserts, swim rivers, and materialize and vanish as if by magic." He says that prisoners had a triple use: as a slave labor force of specialist artisans, as soldiers in the army's nonnomadic contingents, and as "cannon fodder." Genghis Khan fell seriously ill, perhaps with typhus, and died in 1227, and not much is certain about his burial site; the record is, according to the author, "infuriatingly vague." George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
" 'Absorbing and beautifully written...he [Man] conjures up an ancient people in an allen landscape in such a way as to make them live...a thrilling account' - GUARDIAN 'First-rate...lively and argued with elan...a fine introduction to the subject, as well as a rattling good read' - INDEPENDENT 'A fine, well-written and well-researched book' - MAIL ON SUNDAY 'An eloquent account, not only of a fascinating historical figure and his people, but of the resonance of history itself' - WBQ magazine 'Enthralling and colourful' - INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY"
Review
"Absorbing and beautifully written . . . A thrilling account."—The Guardian (U.K.)
"Man has scholarly gifts as well as an acute intelligence and a winning way with words. This is a fine introduction to the subject, as well as a rattling good read."—The Independent (U.K.)
"Every bit as gripping as its subject deserves. History doesn't get much more enthralling than this."—York Evening Post (U.K.)
"Chaucer lauded Genghis Khan in his Canterbury Tales, while others have compared him to Satan (sometimes to Satan's advantage). In this lively volume, historian and travel writer Man presents parallel yet conflicting views of the imperialist and Mongolian national hero. The Great Khan unified the nomadic Mongols, destroyed obstructive empires, built the largest land empire in history, opened trade from Japan to Europe, and in general made way for the modern world. His tactics included murderous but focused terror, multicultural statesmanship, and sheer energy (DNA studies estimate that his genes are in eight percent of the men of Eurasia)."—Library Journal--This text refers to the Paperback edition.
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" 'Absorbing and beautifully written...he [Man] conjures up an ancient people in an allen landscape in such a way as to make them live...a thrilling account' - GUARDIAN 'First-rate...lively and argued with elan...a fine introduction to the subject, as well as a rattling good read' - INDEPENDENT 'A fine, well-written and well-researched book' - MAIL ON SUNDAY 'An eloquent account, not only of a fascinating historical figure and his people, but of the resonance of history itself' - WBQ magazine 'Enthralling and colourful' - INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY" 作者简介
John Man is an historian and travel writer with a special interest in Mongolia and the history of written communication. After reading German and French at Oxford he did two postgraduate courses, one in the history of science, the other in Mongolian. He is the author of a number of acclaimed works of non-fiction, including the forthcoming biography of ATTILA THE HUN.
| 出版社 | Bantam |
|---|---|
| 作者 | John Man |