Review of Mongol

Posted by on June 6, 2008; This entry is filed under Uncategorized.
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In The New York Times of all places. Also, in Dana Stevens in Slate.

14 Comments

  1. TGGP June 7th, 2008 at 3:29 pm

    I thought Temujin was fair-game after his father was killed. And it’s odd hearing about his dedication to one woman when he’s best known around here for impregnating more women than any man in history.

  2. bioIgnoramus June 7th, 2008 at 3:40 pm

    Across the Steppe 
    The horse-borne message came 
    We are little different 
    We are much the same.

  3. razib June 7th, 2008 at 3:40 pm

    I thought Temujin was fair-game after his father was killed. And it’s odd hearing about his dedication to one woman when he’s best known around here for impregnating more women than any man in history. 
     
    well, the life of a figure like temujin is pretty mixed up with legend. i don’t know about this taboo about not killing the young, i think that’s made up for the film. in any case, if the legends have a grain of truth his life as a young man on the margins was so different than that as a world conqueror that one assumes his behavior would vary a lot over time. i recall that the connections his first wife brought were pretty critical in his survival, so that probably explains the relative dedication. his later wives (sorghaghtani) were acquired as he was gaining power and was already secure.

  4. John Emerson June 7th, 2008 at 9:15 pm

    When she is kidnapped by marauding Merkits, Temudgin musters a small army to bring her back, a mission that astonishes his friend Jamukha (Honglei Sun). ?What Mongol ever went to war for a woman?? he wonders. 
     
    Just utter scriptwriter bullshit, with no historical basis in Chinggis Khan’s story and no basis in Mongol culture. Polygamy was OK with Mongols and did not detract from the primacy of the first wife. All of Temujin’s heirs were sons of his first wife Borte, who exercised authority in her own right. His sons by other women went into the rank and file.  
     
    The question of romantic feelings etc. aside, (though there’s no reason to doubt that Temujin did have romantic feelings for his wife), kidnapping a man’s wife is a way of shaming him, and shame must be erased and avenged.

  5. John Emerson June 7th, 2008 at 9:18 pm

    The taboo on killing the young was real — attested in the Secret History in more than one place. It did not apply to non-Mongols, though. 
     
    Mongol men had a distinctive hair style (much of forehead shaved)which the picture in the NYT does not represent.

  6. razib June 8th, 2008 at 12:38 am

    Ruler Of The Sky: A Novel of Genghis Khan. worth checking out, i enjoyed it.

  7. John Emerson June 8th, 2008 at 7:04 am

    Taylor Caldwell also wrote a romance novel about Genghis Khan, IIRC. 
     
    I might add that the primary sources about GK are themselves romanticized, idealized, garbled, and censored. I was just saying that the movie-maker didn’t make up the taboo on killing children; it’s there in the records, which still have to be read critically. 
     
    One of the things I want to write about sometime is the difficulty we have understanding the motivations and personality of someone like CQ. Even men like Caesar and Alexander are impossible to understand if we try to understand them in terms of people we know or personality types common today. During much of the past, war, slave-trading, and massacre were completely unproblematic.

  8. John Emerson June 8th, 2008 at 8:09 am

    Back to the review: what GK did was centralize the distribution of plunder in his own hands. This did mean dividing it up more fairly, but it also gave him control of a centralized organization. Traditional steppe warfare was subject to indiscipline when warriors who captured something valuable left the battle with their loot, and it was impossible to follow a battle plan because any given unit would go to the place where they expected to find something good. GK may have executed his own uncle Daritai for failing to bring his loot to CK. 
     
    That’s an example of something hard for us to understand. As late as 1600-1700 Sweden financed an imperial army which dominated Northern Europe mostly with captured gold, rather than tax money, and it was said that Stockholm was built with “German gold”. With a little luck Sweden might have played a role in history comparable to that of Prussia or Russia. (“The Military Revolution and Political Change” sketches part of the story from a comparative perspective; there are lots of books on Gustavas Adolphus and Karl XII).

  9. John Emerson June 8th, 2008 at 11:11 am

    CQ=GK=CK. Chinggis Qan = Genghis Khan. My sloppiness.

  10. razib June 8th, 2008 at 11:26 am

    This did mean dividing it up more fairly 
     
    yeah, i’m to understand this fairness (as opposed to nepotism) was one reason that he accrued to himself really competent underlings. 
     
    With a little luck Sweden might have played a role in history comparable to that of Prussia or Russia. 
     
    *little*? ;-) i’m not h.l. mackinder, but it seems like there were a lot of structural reasons why the rank order of great-state power was russia, prussia and sweden. so i would say *a lot* of luck (not saying it’s impossible).

  11. John Emerson June 8th, 2008 at 5:11 pm

    At one point Sweden ruled considerable areas of Baltic Germany and controlled Poland. Prussia wasn’t a majot power at that time; after Sweden lost their German territories Prussia moved into a power vacuum which wouldn’t have been there if Sweden had maintained themselves. In the case of Russia, it would have taken quite a lot of luck, but if Peter the Great’s modernizations had stalled, or if Sweden had maintained control of Poland, there might have been at least a standoff. As it was, Karl XII went for broke in 1709 and was defeated.  
     
    Prussia became a great power by absorbing smaller German states, a process which continued intothe XIXc.

  12. razib June 8th, 2008 at 5:32 pm

    Prussia became a great power by absorbing smaller German states, a process which continued intothe XIXc. 
     
    yes, though they managed to leverage a larger demographic base than sweden had to begin with (the massive conscription mobilized more state resources). my only point would be that the only way that sweden could have maintained its great power status would be to do with lithuania did during its heyday: absorb other polities into its structure. so eventually sweden probably would have been affected by the lithuanian problem: absorption into east slav orthodox (russian) or west slav catholic (polish) identities. that is, the swedish elite which defined the swedish state likely would have been germanized or slavicized or whatever to a large extent if they managed to control a large enough base of territory to perpetuate great power status…. 
     
    what say you?

  13. John Emerson June 8th, 2008 at 7:08 pm

    We’re in the area of wild speculation, as you immediately understood. But the Swedes had the smarts and organization to integrate Northern Germany and probably Poland, which would have precluded Prussia’s rise. (Lithuania was an entirely different historical era — Sweden was actually the second absolutist state after France.)  
     
    Russia would have been tougher, but by diplomacy with the Cossacks, Austria, and the Turks, and by controlling the Baltic, the Swedes would have been able to hem them in. If they could have split off some additional area with the help of a minor prince, it might have worked. 
     
    An additional factor: for generations the Swedes had been trying to unite with Denmark via a favorable marriage. The right combination of royal deaths, marriages without male heirs, etc., might have allowed that to happen. 
     
    A big negative factors was the reluctance of France, England, Holland, and Austria to see another major power. At various times Sweden cooperate with most of them, but at a certain point most of them would have united against Sweden. 
     
    This is my own personal hobby fantasy. I have no idea whether it’s valid. I suspect that Swedish neo-Nazis are the most likely to agree with me.

  14. windy June 10th, 2008 at 1:37 pm

    In the case of Russia, it would have taken quite a lot of luck, but if Peter the Great’s modernizations had stalled 
     
    and/or if he had failed to found St Petersburg, that would have had all sorts of interesting consequences.

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