Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia

Breaks new scholarly boundaries in the exploration of cultural and scientific exchanges across Mongol Eurasia.

Thomas T. Allsen (Author)

9780521602709, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 25 March 2004

264 pages
23.2 x 15.4 x 1.6 cm, 0.4 kg

'… this is mature scholarship at its best, and a must not only for every student of the Mongol empire, but also for cultural and world historians, historians of China and the Muslim world, and anybody interested in the ongoing exchange between East and West.' Journal of the American Oriental Society

In the thirteenth century, the Mongols created a vast transcontinental empire that functioned as a cultural 'clearing house' for the Old World. Under Mongol auspices various commodities, ideologies and technologies were disseminated across Eurasia. The focus of this path-breaking study is the extensive exchanges between Iran and China. The Mongol rulers of these two ancient civilizations 'shared' the cultural resources of their realms with one another. The result was a lively traffic in specialist personnel and scholarly literature between East and West. These exchanges ranged from cartography to printing, from agriculture to astronomy. The book concludes by asking why the Mongols made such heavy use of sedentary scholars and specialists in the elaboration of their court culture and why they initiated so many exchanges across Eurasia. This is a work of great erudition which crosses new scholarly boundaries in its analysis of communication and culture in the Mongol empire.

Part I. Background: 1. Introduction
2. Before the Mongols
Part II. Political-Economic Relations: 3. Formation of the Il-qans, 1251–65
4. Grand Qans and Il-qans, 1265–95
5. Continuity and change under Ghazan, 1295–1304
6. Sultans and Grand Qans, 1304–35
7. Economic ties
8. Overview of the relationship
Part III. Intermediaries: 9. Marco Polo and Po-lo
10. Qubilai and Bolad Aqa
11. Rashid al-Din and Pulad chinksank
Part IV. Cultural Exchange: 12. Historiography
13. Geography and cartography
14. Agriculture
15. Cuisine
16. Medicine
17. Astronomy
18. Printing
Part V. Analysis and Conclusions: 19. Models and methods
20. Agency
21. Filtering
22. Summation.

Subject Areas: Anthropology [JHM], Islam [HRH], Early history: c 500 to c 1450/1500 [HBLC], Asian history [HBJF], General & world history [HBG]