The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World by Marie Favereau
Non-Fiction suggested by Shirley
from Amazon – An epic history of the Mongols. Conquerors and also city builders, diplomats, and supple economic thinkers who constructed one of the most influential empires in history. Their accomplishments extended far beyond war.Favereau takes us inside one of the most powerful sources of cross-border integration in world history. The Horde was the central node in the Eurasian commercial boom of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and was a conduit for exchanges across thousands of miles. Its unique political regime—a complex power-sharing arrangement among the khan and the nobility—rewarded skillful administrators and diplomats and fostered an economic order that was mobile, organized, and innovative. From its capital at Sarai on the lower Volga River, the Horde provided a governance model for Russia, influenced social practice and state structure across Islamic cultures, disseminated sophisticated theories about the natural world, and introduced novel ideas of religious tolerance.