But by and large the works are thoroughly researched and well-documented.
In particular, he relies heavily on a single source, The Secret History of the Mongols, a 13th-century biography of Genghis Khan. My quibble in both books is that Weatherford may overstate his reading of Genghis Khan’s personality and character given relatively sparse and unreliable historical records on the subject.
But rather than just throw out a dry recitation of facts, Weatherford provides a gripping narrative and places it in broader human and sociological contexts. The entire Mongol tribe was no more than one million people, with perhaps one hundred thousand warriors. The majority of people today live in countries conquered by the Mongols on the modern map Genghis Khan’s conquests include thirty countries with well over 3 billion people. At its zenith, the empire covered between 11 and 12 million contiguous square miles, an area about the size of the African continent and considerably larger than North America. Genghis Khan conquered more than twice as much as any other man in history. Genghis Khan, together with his sons and grandsons, conquered the most densely populated civilization of the thirteenth century. In twenty-five years, the Mongol army subjugated more lands and people than the Romans had conquered in four hundred years. How important is Genghis Khan to our study of history? Here’s an idea: Weatherford artfully guides us through a period of history which is too often a blur to the unfamiliar Western reader. This follows our prior study of his best-selling 2005 book Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. As part of my amazing Wesley Advocates study group, we’ve embarked on a study of Jack Weatherford’s 2017 book Genghis Khan and the Quest for God: How the World’s Greatest Conqueror Gave Us Religious Freedom.
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