REVIEW BY KAVEH FARROKH
With this book, Nicholas Morton has filled a gap in the field in the study of the Mongol military genius and the immense impact of their conquests in the 13th century. This impact was truly international in scale, encompassing regions as far east as Japan, Korea, and China, as well as the Middle East and central Europe. Morton has also successfully managed to address two, parallel audiences: the lay reader, in the form of history enthusiasts; and the academic audience. Detailed references and a comprehensive bibliography, as well as a large selection of maps, are helpful to the latter group.
One of Morton’s skills is in providing plenty of context to the Mongol conquests. For instance, the invasions of Central Asia and Persia, covered in the early chapters, are approached not in isolation but with reference to the wider impact on the region. This is also true of his discussions of the Mongol targeting of Eastern Europe, notably the crushing of the Volga Bulgars and the Rus principalities in 1236, the capture of Kiev in 1240, and the successes against European armies in Hungary and Poland in 1241. This was all at a time when even Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) was threatened by the seemingly unstoppable Mongol advance.
It was the sacking of Byzantine Constantinople by the Christian Crusader armies of western Europe in April 1204 that provided the Mongols with a significant opening for advance. The ‘astonishing and brutal act’ of the sacking, Morton states, saw a dividing line drawn between Western Christendom and their Byzantine Eastern Orthodox co-religionists, shattering the notion of Europe as a monolith perpetually at war with an ‘Islamic’ east. Amid this maelstrom, the Mongols acted opportunistically, and Morton’s analysis demonstrates that their arrival into the Near East theatre was facilitated by the chaos of the already established conflicts between the Islamic powers and their Christian Crusader enemies. Morton is clear on how the Mongol arrival in this region impacted these wars and the ever-shifting alliances that were a consequence of them.
