Fascinating history of the great Khan’s; Genghis as well as Kubla. When I began the book my opinion (and knowledge) of the Mongols had been (unknown to me) formed by Voltaire (of all people) who had used the Mongols as an immoral stand-in for the King of France. Because of him, Western history has been very unkind to Genghis and the Mongols in general but this book does a good job of setting the record much straighter.

The only quibble I have is the quibble I have with all books like this, and that it the tendency for the author to imply that there was some sort of grand design or plan to the way the culture was shaped. Events (such as the forming of a national post office as well as trade and religious tolerance) were more for convenience sake and not because they were so incredibly forward thinking. However, given how poorly history has treated the Mongols, swinging the bat hard in the other direction should help to reduce the severity of misinformation about the Mongols.

I would have loved to have learned more about Subutai, but there isn’t that much information about him to begin with (other than his victories and how fat he got) and there is plenty of military tactical and strategic information in this book to appease any military history buff.