/his/ Mongol books

Reference Works
Atwood, Christopher P. Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire. New York: Facts on File, 2004. This large work of almost 700 pages will be invaluable to students and others searching for a topic on the Mongol World Empire. Larger entries have very useful lists of relevant published scholarship on their topics.
Buell, Paul D. Historical Dictionary of the Mongol Empire. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2003. The first hundred pages of this dictionary constitute a highly valuable overview of the empire’s history and are followed by the dictionary itself, which contains entries from one paragraph to several pages in length.

The Life and Conquests of Chinggis Khan
Biran, Michal. Chinggis Khan. Oxford: Oneworld, 2007. A brief and readable biography of the great khan for general readers interested primarily in Chinggis Khan’s importance in the Islamic world. Biran is a prominent and highly gifted polyglot who reads original historical documents in Chinese, Persian, and Russian. This is a brief but very solid work.
Dunnell, Ruth W. Chinggis Khan: World Conqueror. Boston: Longman, 2010. Brief but serious and useful look at Chinggis Khan’s life and legacy by a noted Sinologist and Tangut specialist.
Fitzhugh, William W., Morris Rossabi, and William Honeychurch, eds. Genghis Khan and the Mongolian Empire. Washington, DC: Mongolian Preservation Foundation, 2009. An edited volume of brief articles on many disparate subjects, many of them archaeological. Among the many topics covered are the search for Chinggis Khan’s tomb, his religion and genetic legacy, and the Mongol invasion of Japan. Its articles contain useful biographical information.
Martin, H. Desmond. The Rise of Chingis Khan and His Conquest of North China. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1950. This distinguished study of Chinggis Khan draws the story of the Great Khan’s life from Chinese-language primary sources. There are separate chapters on Chinggis’s army; his youth; his attacks on western Xia and the Jurchen Jin; his conquest of Manchuria; Mukhali, his general; and his legacy and greatness. This work is mainly a detailed account of the khan’s campaigns and conquests in northern China.
Ratchnevsky, Paul. Genghis Khan: His Life and Legacy. Translated and edited by T. N. Haining. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991. This is probably the granddaddy of all serious biographies of Chinggis Khan in English. Ratchnevsky uses primary sources in Chinese, Persian, and Russian and, of course, reads all of the relevant European languages.
Rogers, Leland Liu, trans. The Golden Summary of Činggis Qaγan. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz, 2009. A 17th-century literary biography, the Činggis Qaγan-u Altan Tobči is widely regarded among the Mongols as the second great work on Chinggis Khan, after The Secret History (indeed, it contains considerable overlap with that source). It contains a mythical genealogy of the ancestors of Chinggis Khan, a brief chronicle of Yuan history in China, and several patently fanciful passages.
Ssanang Ssetsen, Chungtaidschi. The Bejewelled Summary of the Origin of Khans: A History of the Eastern Mongols to 1662. Translated by John Krueger. Occasional Papers (Mongolia Society) 2. Bloomington, IN: Mongolia Society, 1967. This 17th-century literary chronicle by Ssanang Ssetsen is a more mythical and fanciful history of Chinggis Khan than either The Secret History or the Altan Tobči. Several editions and translations of it exist, including a later one by Krueger with Igor de Rachewiltz.
Primary Sources and Source Studies on Chinggis Khan
Boyle, John Andrew, trans. The History of World Conqueror. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1958. Alā al-Dīn ʾAṭāʾ-Malik is a history of Chinggis Khan by Juvainī, a Persian historian who accompanied the Mongol conqueror (and founder of the Il Khanate) Hülegü on the Mongol conquest of Alamut in 1256 and Baghdad in 1258. This is one of the indispensable resources for the life of the Great Khan.
Boyle, John Andrew, trans. The Successors of Genghis Khan. New York: Columbia University Press, 1971. This is an all-important source by Rashīd al-Dīn on the Mongol khans after Chinggis, especially Khubilai. Rashīd al-Dīn (1247–1318) was a Jewish scholar who wrote on Islamic history as well as the Mongol Empire.
Cleaves, Francis Woodman, trans. The Secret History of the Mongols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard-Yenching Institute, Harvard University Press, 1982. This very literal and scholarly translation was the first rendition into English of The Secret History (Yuan Ch’on Pi Shih). Because Cleaves thought the Mongolian language of The Secret History to be archaic (and indeed it is in comparison with modern Mongolian), he translated it into archaic King James English. Cleaves’s translation can thus be difficult to read at times.
Kahn, Paul, ed. The Secret History of the Mongols: The Origin of Chingis Khan; An Adaptation of the Yuan Ch’ao Pi Shih, Based Primarily on the English Translation of Francis Woodman Cleaves. San Francisco: North Point, 1984. In the early 1980s, Kahn obtained a copy of Cleaves’s scholarly unpublished translation of The Secret History and rendered it into modern English. Kahn worked from Cleaves’s translation alone and did not use any Mongolian. For several years, this was the only easily readable English version.
Onon, Urgunge, trans. The History and the Life of Chinggis Khan: The Secret History of the Mongols. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1990. This English translation of The Secret History by a native Mongolian speaker replaced Kahn’s rendition as the best available English translation. However, even after its appearance, scholars eagerly awaited the publication of Rachewiltz’s translation, one with extensive commentary and annotation.
Rachewiltz, Igor de, trans. The Secret History of the Mongols: A Mongolian Epic Chronicle of the Thirteenth Century. 2 vols. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2004. This is the premier and magnificently annotated translation, which took many years to complete. In the meantime, scholars had to rely on installments of this translation as they appeared in an Australian periodical. The three volumes of this work (a third supplementary volume was published in 2013) are extremely expensive.
Rossabi, Morris. The Mongols and Global History: A Norton Documents Reader. New York: Norton, 2011. Rossabi’s compilation of translated original historical documents on the Mongols contains material on the rise of the empire, the life and conquests of Chinggis Khan, the expansion of the empire, Mongol rule, and the collapse of the empire. This collection of primary historical documents, including excerpts on Chinggis Khan from The Secret History, the Persian historians, and Changchun on Chinggis Khan, is useful and enjoyable.
Waley, Arthur, trans. The Travels of an Alchemist: The Journey of the Taoist, Ch’ang-ch’un, from China to the Hindukush at the Summons of Chingiz Khan; Recorded by His Disciple, Li Chih-ch’ang. London: Routledge, 1931. This is an enthralling account of Ch’ang-ch’un, a Taoist priest, who traveled all the way from China to the Hindukush at the bidding of Chinggis Khan himself, who was on campaign there at the time. Chinggis Khan had respect for all religious leaders and scholars. This remains the classic account of Ch’ang-ch’un’s travels to Chinggis Khan’s encampment in Afghanistan around 1220.
General Histories and Studies of the Mongols
Jagchid, Sechin, and Paul Hyer. Mongolia’s Culture and Society. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1979. This is a fine single-volume introduction to Mongolia in general. Its main author, Sechin Jagchid, was a native of Inner Mongolia and wrote extensively all his life on the Inner Mongolia as he knew it. It remains the single most useful and informative general introduction to Mongol culture, past and present.
May, Timothy. Culture and Customs of Mongolia. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2009. This volume includes chapters on history, pastoral nomadism, religion, literature, cuisine, dress, gender, courtship, marriage, festivals, leisure, social customs, lifestyle, and the legacy of Chinggis Khan. As a general introduction to Mongol culture, this work complements, but does not replace, Jagchid and Hyer 1979.
Morgan, David O. The Mongols. 2d ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007. This is currently the preeminent general introduction to the Mongols and their history and culture. The author is a distinguished Persianist. This remains the best single-volume survey history of the Mongols currently available.
Rossabi, Morris. The Mongols: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. This introductory text on the Mongols is brief indeed (176 pages) and is part of a series of books all subtitled “A Very Short Introduction” published by Oxford University Press. It contains chapters on life on the steppes, the emergence of Chinggis Khan, the Mongol conquests, the Mongols in world history, and Mongol arts and culture. This useful little volume is, as its title indicates, a very short history, perhaps a little too short. DOI: 10.1093/actrade/9780199840892.001.0001














Mongolia: The Land and the History
Amitai, Reuven, and Michal Biran, eds. Mongols, Turks, and Others: Eurasian Nomads and the Sedentary World. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2005. An edited volume of essays on various topics such as the “Sino-barbarian” dichotomy, what nomads wanted, war between the various khanates and sedentary states, and even a solid piece by Elizabeth Endicott on changing Mongol pastoralism in the context of 20th-century China.
Barfield, Thomas Jefferson. The Perilous Frontier: Nomadic Empires and China. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, 1989. Barfield sees pastoral nomadic confederations as being dependent on China for luxury items, as opposed to subsistence commodities. Luxury items were used to pay off local and regional chieftains and thereby keep the confederations together. Barfield’s is essentially a political argument.
Di Cosmo, Nicola. Ancient China and Its Enemies: The Rise of Nomadic Power in East Asian History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Di Cosmo looks at Sino-barbarian interrelations from c. 900 to 100 BCE and covers the first emergence of pastoral nomadic peoples on China’s northern frontiers. He uses more recently discovered archaeological evidence as well as traditional historical materials. He views the Chinese more often than not as the aggressors against, and provokers of, pastoral nomads.
Di Cosmo, Nicola, Allen J. Frank, and Peter B. Golden, eds. The Cambridge History of Inner Asia: The Chinggisid Age. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009. This volume, with chapters by individual scholars, is both a history of the Mongol World Empire and a history of Inner Asia through the 19th century. Among the topics covered over twenty chapters are Inner Asia in general and the various nomadic and sedentary peoples in Inner Asia after the Timurids.
Grousset, René. The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia. Translated by Naomi Walford. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1970. Grousset’s masterwork is an old and still useful workhorse for all of Central Asian history, from the Scythians and Huns through Mongolian history into the 18th century.
Jagchid, Sechin, and Van Jay Symons. Peace, War, and Trade along the Great Wall: Nomadic-Chinese Interaction through Two Millennia. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989. This book contends that China usually provoked war because it refused to trade peaceably with the pastoral nomads, who were dependent on Chinese textiles, foods, and metals products for their very survival. If the Chinese would trade at border markets for these items, peace prevailed; if not, the nomads attacked. Jagchid’s argument, the “trade-or-raid” thesis, is essentially an economic one.
Khazanov, Anatoly M. Nomads and the Outside World. Translated by Julia Crookenden. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Khazanov argues that pastoral nomads everywhere needed to have economic ties with sedentary civilizations—there was no such thing as nomadic “autarky,” or economic independence and isolation. Pastoral nomads satisfied their material needs and dependence on agrarian societies by carefully weighing power relationships; if the agricultural state was strong, they would trade, whereas if it was weak, they would be tempted to raid.
Yü Ying-shih. Trade and Expansion in Han China: A Study in the Structure of Sino-Barbarian Economic Relations. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967. Yü’s book is an important iteration of the more traditional Chinese view of the pastoral nomads—that they are not fully human and are uncouth, unruly, innately aggressive, and mostly unpredictable and insatiable. Thus, China had to be leery of them at all times and find various military and political means for keeping them from attacking China.

The Mongol Military
Di Cosmo, Nicola, ed. Warfare in Inner Asian History: 500–1800. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2002. This ambitious and sprawling volume covers a lot of territory chronologically. One relevant important article is Thomas T. Allsen’s “The Circulation of Military Technology in the Mongolian Empire” (pp. 265–294).
Hsiao, Ch’i-ch’ing. The Military Establishment of the Yuan Dynasty. Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University Press, 1978. This is a careful, scholarly annotated, translation of the military sections of the bingzhi (military monographs) of the Yuanshi (Yuan history). A substantial introduction to the translation covers much of the Mongolian military system, including the imperial guard and the garrisoning system.
May, Timothy. The Mongol Art of War: Chinggis Khan and the Mongol Military System. Yardley, PA: Westholme, 2007. In this very useful and informative work, May includes chapters on the organization of the Mongol armies, their training and equipment, their logistics and medical care, and their espionage, tactics, and strategy. He also gives several epitomes or brief histories of key battles the Mongols waged.
May, Timothy. The Mongol Conquests in World History. London: Reaktion, 2012. May correctly observes that “. . . the Mongol Empire is the very definition of world history” (p. 7). In this book, which is mostly a history of the post-conquest Mongol World Empire, May covers the formation of the empire, the Mongol Peace or “Pax Mongolica,” warfare, religion, the plague, and cultural exchange. In this volume, May draws mostly on secondary studies.
Smith, John Masson. “Mongol Manpower and Persian Population.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 18 (1975): 271–299. The exact size of the Mongol armies is difficult to assess. This is a classic attempt by Smith to quantify the numbers in the Mongol armies based on estimated population sizes.



















Ostrowski, Donald. “Systems of Succession in Rus’ and Steppe Societies.” Ruthenica 11 (2012): 29–58. A sweeping and comparative analysis of the systems of succession that prevailed in the west Eurasian space, comparing the succession practices in Russia with succession in China, among the Mongols, and in other polities of the Qipchaq Steppe.
Halperin, Charles J. Russia and the Golden Horde: The Mongol Impact on Medieval Russian History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987. A succinct and significant volume that offers an important reevaluation of the relationship between the Rus’ principalities and the Mongols and Golden Horde, or, more properly, the Jochid ulus—the principal successor state in the west Eurasian space. Argues that the relationship was far more dynamic and nuanced (and sometimes collaborative) than the received view contemplates.
Ostrowski, Donald. Muscovy and the Mongols: Cross-Cultural Influences on the Steppe Frontier, 1304–1589. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998. A broad and eclectic work of scholarship and source study, which situates the Muscovite-Mongol engagement in a larger, Eurasian context. The work elucidates the range of borrowings from the Mongols and describes, through detailed analysis of sources, the evolving attitude and ideologies of the Russian Orthodox Church toward their Mongol overlords.
Meyendorff, John. Byzantium and the Rise of Russia: A Study of Byzantino-Russian Relations in the Fourteenth Century. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1981. A classic and still relevant study of the relations between Byzantium and Muscovy at the very moment when Muscovy was forming itself into one of the major principalities in northeastern Rus’. Particularly strong on ecclesiastical ties and monasticism, but also situates Muscovy in the context of the Mongols and Muscovy’s western neighbors.
Bosworth, C. Edmund. “The Political and Dynastic History of the Iranian world (A.D. 1000–1217).” In The Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 5, The Saljuq and Mongol Periods. Edited by J. A. Boyle, 1–202. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1968. A long-time standard reference on the history of the Seljuk and early Mongol periods. Bosworth provides detailed discussions on the origin of the Seljuk tribe, its conversion to Sunni Islam, movements into Iran and Mesopotamia, and raiding and invasion of Anatolia. This is an essential reference for understanding the division of the Seljuk world into numerous sultanates in the decades after Manzikert. DOI: 10.1017/CHOL9780521069366
Inalcik, Halil. “The Question of the Emergence of the Ottoman State.” International Journal of Turkish Studies 2 (1980): 71–79. Population pressure from those fleeing the Mongols was the chief cause for the formation of Turkish mercenary units employed by the Byzantines. Thus the single most important cause of the rise of the Ottoman dynasty was secular rather than religious in nature. Available online.
Setton, Kenneth M., ed. A History of the Crusades. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1962–1989. Six volumes from 1962–1989. Beyond the obvious significance of the Crusades for the Ayyubid period (see also Crusaders and Mongols), Volumes 1 and 2 contain important chapters—a bit dated but still valuable—on the Seljukids and Mongols (Cahen) and on Saladin and his predecessors and successor (Gibb).
Humphreys, R. Stephen. From Saladin to the Mongols: The Ayyubids of Damascus, 1193–1260. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1977. Beginning with an analysis of the political system constructed by Saladin, this study focuses on the struggle to control the strategically crucial principality of Damascus in order to show how that system was maintained (and ultimately subverted) by his successors.
Rashid al-Din. Histoire des Mongols de la Perse. Edited and translated by Étienne Quatremère. Amsterdam: Oriental, 1968. Originally published in Paris in 1836. Rashid al-Din (d. 1309) was vizier to Ghazan Khan, the Mongol ruler of Iran (1295–1304). His account is fundamental for the Mongol conquest of Iraq and Syria in 1258–1260—a victor’s rather than a victim’s perspective on these events.
Bar Hebraeus. The Chronography of Gregory Abu-l-Faraj. 2 vols. Edited and translated by E. A. W. Budge. London: Oxford University Press, 1932. Bar Hebraeus (d. 1280) was the last major Syrian chronicler. He draws heavily both from Michael the Syrian and from contemporary Arab-Muslim sources, but adds many useful details and is especially important for the Mongol invasion in 1258–1260.
Atrache, Laila. Die Politik der Ayyubiden: Die fränkisch-islamischen Beziehungen in der ersten Hälfte des 7./13. Jahrhunderts unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Feinbildes. Münster, Germany: Rhema, 1996. A monograph on the complex ways in which the Ayyubids and their Frankish opponents viewed and dealt with each other. Focuses especially on the Fifth Crusade (1217–1121) and the Crusade of Frederick II (1228–1229).
Morgan, David. The Mongols. 2d ed. Malden, MA, and Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2007. A readable and intelligent overview of the rise and character of the Mongol Empire in Eurasia, which had a devastating impact on Iraq and Syria in the 1250s. An excellent bibliographic essay provides further orientation to a complex field.
Humphreys, R. Stephen. From Saladin to the Mongols: The Ayyubids of Damascus, 1193–1260. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1977. Still the only book-length treatment of the Ayyubid confederation as a whole, from its founding by Saladin down to its collapse in the face of the Mongol invasion. Stresses the central role of the Syrian principalities, with Damascus at the center of the conflict, as their rulers strove to fend off the threat of Egyptian domination.
Le Gall, Dina. A Culture of Sufism: Naqshbandis in the Ottoman World, 1450–1700. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. A historian’s study of post-Mongol tariqa Sufism and the early dissemination of the Naqshbandiyah into the Ottoman world.
Boyle, J. A., ed. The Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 5, The Saljuq and Mongol Periods. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1968. Of particular interest for the history of the later Abbasid caliphate are chapters by C. E. Bosworth, “The Political and Dynastic History of the Iranian World (AD 1000–1217),” pp. 1–202; and A. K. S. Lambton, “The Internal Structure of the Saljuq Empire,” pp. 203–282. DOI: 10.1017/CHOL9780521069366
Dunnell, Ruth W. The Great State of White and High: Buddhism and State Formation in Eleventh-Century Xia. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1996. The only Western-language history of the Tangut state of Xi Xia, this book shows how the Tanguts fashioned an imperial ideology from tantric Buddhism, and in so doing provided a model for the Mongols and Manchus.
Twitchett, Denis, and Herbert Franke, eds. The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 6, Alien Regimes and Border States, 907–1368. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994. While more than half this volume is devoted to the Mongols and the Yuan dynasty, the first three hundred pages provide narrative histories of the Liao, Xi Xia, and Jin.
Gernet, Jacques. Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion, 1250–1276. Translated by H. M. Wright. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1962. This book provides an engaging account of life on Song Hangzhou on the eve of the Mongol conquest. Although dated, thanks to the profusion of work on Song social history that has appeared since then this work by the great French sinologist Jacques Gernet provides a fascinating entrée into a world long lost. Reprinted as recently as 1995.
Birge, Bettine. Women, Property, and Confucian Reaction in Sung and Yüan China (960–1368). Cambridge Studies in Chinese History, Literature, and Institutions. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002. An important contribution to Chinese women’s history, which describes the very considerable legal status of Song women and argues that their subsequent decline in status did not stem from Song Neo-Confucianism but rather from social and legal changes initiated by the Mongols. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511511950
Esherick, Joseph W. “How the Qing Became China.” In Empire to Nation: Historical Perspectives on the Making of the Modern World. Edited by Joseph W. Esherick, Hasan Kayali, and Eric Van Young, 229–259. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006. Treats the 1911 revolution as a critical moment for China to maintain sovereignty over the Qing Empire territory. Addresses the question of how the Qing Empire made the transition to a Chinese nation state. The 1911 revolution, Chinese nationalism, imperialist threats in the Manchurian, Tibetan, Mongolian, and Muslim regions were the key to understanding such a transformation.
Morgan, David O., ed. Medieval Historical Writing in the Christian and Islamic Worlds. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1982. An important collection of conference papers from 1979, which takes as its starting point the relative lack of genuine documentary evidence for medieval societies in the Christian and Islamic worlds. Chapters with an Islamic focus include Brett on the Fatimids, Holt on Mamluk historiography, Richards on Ibn al-Athir, and Morgan on Persian historians of the Mongols and Ilkhanids.
Daniel, Elton, A. Shapur Shahbazi, and Charles Melville, et al. “Historiography.” In Encyclopaedia Iranica. Vol. 12. Edited by E. Yarshater. New York: Encyclopaedia Iranica Foundation, 2004:323–411. Extensive entries with bibliographies on historiography in Persian and from the Iranian Islamic world in all languages, covering all periods from before Islam to the present. Particularly important entries include the “Introduction” and the “Early Islamic Period,” by Daniel, the “Mongol Period,” by Melville, the “Timurid Period,” by Maria Szeppe, and “Central Asia,” by Yuri Bregel. Also available online.
Bosworth, Clifford E. “The Persian Contribution to Islamic Historiography in the pre-Mongol Period.” In The Persian Presence in the Islamic World. Edited by Richard G. Hovannisian and Georges Sabagh, 218–236. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998. A short survey of the main trends in historical writing in Iran down to the beginning of the 14th century.
Allsen, Thomas T. Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001. An analysis of the cultural impact of the Mongol empire. Chapter 12 (83–102) is an up-to-date discussion of the impact of Ilkhanid rule on Persian historiography, focusing on the work of the great universal historian Rashid al-Din (d. 1318).
Boyle, John A. “Rashīd al-Dīn: the First World Historian.” Iran, Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies 9 (1971): 19–26. A full and detailed discussion of the life and works of Rashid al-Din, with extensive references.
al-Juwayni, Malik. The History of the World Conqueror. 2 vols. Translated by John A. Boyle. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1958. A very important source for the history of the Mongols by al-Juwayni (d. 1283), a courtier and administrator at the Ilkhanid court. Reprinted in 1997.
Morgan, David O. “Persian Historians and the Mongols.” In Medieval Historical Writing in the Christian and Islamic Worlds. Edited by David O. Morgan, 109–124. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1982. A short article tracing the shifting attitudes to the Mongols in Persian historiography between the time of al-Juzjani (d. c. 1265) and Rashid al-Din (d. 1318).
Rashid al-Din, Fadl Allah. Histoire des Mongols de la Perse. Edited and translated by Étienne M. Quatremère. Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1836. A French translation of part of the encyclopedic world history by Rashid al-Din, a senior adviser to the Ilkhanid rulers Ghazan Khan (d. 1304) and Öljeitü (d. 1316). Reprinted in 1968 by the Oriental Press (Amsterdam).
Rashid al-Din, Fadl Allah. The Successors of Genghis Khan. Translated by John A. Boyle. New York: Columbia University Press, 1971. An English translation of part of the world history of Rashid al-Din.
Woods, John E. “The Rise of Timurid Historiography.” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 46, no. 2 (1987): 81–108. An important study of Persian historiography in the eastern Islamic lands in the 14th and 15th centuries. Following the Mongol invasion in the mid-13th century and their conversion to Islam a few decades later, the position of Persian as a major literary language of the Islamic East was further developed and consolidated, largely through the Central Asian conquerors' reliance on Persian-speaking administrators. After the fragmentation of the Mongol Ilkhanate (Anatolia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran and Iraq, which comprised the southwest province of the Mongol empire), the development of Persian historiography continued under Timur (r. 1370–1405) and his successors. Monographs on Ilkhanid and Timurid historiography have yet to be written. The relevant entries in the Encyclopedia Iranica (see the section Reference Works and Bibliographies) are comprehensive and include up-to-date bibliographies. Morgan 1982 discusses al-Juzjani (d. c. 1265), al-Juwayni (d. 1283) and Rashid al-Din (d. 1318). The latter has received much scholarly attention (see Boyle 1971 and Allsen 2001). On Timurid historiography, see Woods 1987. Useful translations include al-Juwayni 1958, Rashid al-Din 1836, and Rashid al-Din 1971. . DOI: 10.1086/373225
Adams, Ryon F. “Outthought and Outfought: Reassessing the Mongol Invasions of Japan.” MA diss., Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, KS, 2009. An excellent comparative study of the validity of many other publications on the subject including those listed here; the author also includes his own take on the invasions as well as the background information on the Chinese and Korean involvement. College level.
Conlan, Thomas D. In Little Need of Devine Intervention: Takezaki Suenaga’s Scrolls of the Mongol Invasions of Japan. Cornell East Asia Series. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001. Translation/interpretation of the title and other supporting scrolls and documents; familiarity of Romanized Japanese language and syntax helpful for reading the footnotes; reproduced illustrations in Japanese order, fold formatted right to left, for easier reading; bibliography lists English and Japanese sources; author explains many of his interpretations; graduate level.
Delgado, James P. Khubilai Khan’s Lost Fleet: In Search of a Legendary Armada. Berkley, CA: University of California Press, 2008. An eye-opening account of the khan’s navy that was sunk by the kamikaze. The author dove the wrecks and produced a fascinating and enlightening report of his findings. A must read for anyone interested in the Mongol invasions of Japan; a lot of questions answered; college level.
Farris, Wayne. “Review of In Little Need of Devine Intervention: Takezaki Suenaga’s Scrolls of the Mongol Invasions of Japan by Thomas Conlan.” Journal of Japanese Studies 2 (Summer 2003): 418. An example of the many controversial reviews of this article on this short war; highly recommended to read this as well as search out the many more articles on this publication; university level.
Winchester, Mark. The Mongol Invasions of Japan. Slaithwaite, UK: Belgahrun, 2008. A relatively short work that agrees with Conlan 2001 on the defeat of the Mongols regardless of the storms, arguing that prior to the storms, the Mongol and Japanese armies were at a stalemate. Interesting perspective and worth the read. University level.
Yamada, Nakaba. Ghenko: The Mongol Invasion of Japan 1274–1281. Regiments and Campaigns series. Driffield, UK: Leonaur, 2012. One of the most comprehensive works on the invasions, presenting the argument that the storms were a major factor in the defeat and retreat of the Mongols. Also compares it to the English navy’s defeat of the Spanish armadas in 1588. University level.
Neumann, Markus, and Jörg Rogge, eds. Die besetzte Res publica: zum Verhältnis von ziviler Obrigkeit und militärischer Herrschaft in besetzten Gebieten vom Spätmittelalter bis zum 18. Jahrhundert. Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2006. Dutch, French, and German authors explore a diverse array of occupations, from the Mongolian conquest of Bukhara, to the Dutch occupation of Lille, to a Branschweigian garrison in Canada. While most chapters focus on European occupations, they examine different aspects within the context of these occupations, such as occupied populations’ allegiance to their foreign military occupiers and local administrative innovation.
Amitai-Preiss, Reuven. Mongols and Mamluks: The Mamluk-Ilkhanid War, 1260–1281. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995. An outstanding study of the conflict between two steppe peoples fighting for control of the Middle East, the Mongols, and the Turks of Egypt, the Mamluks.
Weiner, Douglas R. “The Predatory Tribute-Taking State: A Framework for Understanding Russian Environmental History.” In The Environment and World History. Edited by Edmund Burke III and Kenneth Pomeranz, 276–314. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. Argues that while early Slavs valued and depended on forests, ever since the 13th-century Mongol invasion of eastern Europe, and subsequently the rise of the Muscovite state, successive regimes led to the clearing of forests and the loss of considerable biological diversity in Muscovy (and eventually the broader territories of Russia). Subsequently reprinted in J. R. McNeill and Alan Roe, eds. Global Environmental History: An Introductory Reader (London: Routledge, 2013), pp. 283–319.
Ahmad, Zahiruddin. Sino-Tibetan Relations in the Seventeenth Century. Serie Orientale 40. Rome: Istituto Orientale er il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1971. This work reproduces letters between the Dalai Lama and the rulers of the new Qing dynasty, showing that the new Sino-Tibetan relationship was no different from the patron-protector relationship that had existed earlier with other rulers, such as the Mongols.
Farmer, Edward L. Zhu Yuanzhang and Early Ming Legislation: The Reordering of Chinese Society Following the Era of Mongol Rule. Sinica Leidensia 34. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1995. This work translates The August Ancestral Instruction (Huang Ming zu xun), The Great Ming Commandant (Da Ming ling), and The Placard of People’s Instructions (Jiao min bang wen).
Farmer, Edward L. Zhu Yuanzhang and Early Ming Legislation: The Reordering of Chinese Society Following the End of Mongol Rule. Sinica Leidensia 34. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1995. Detailed analysis of several sets of regulations that the Ming founder compiled, promulgated, and repeatedly revised to better order the empire, the imperial family, and social order.
Schneewind, Sarah, ed. Long Live the Emperor! Uses of the Ming Founder across Six Centuries of East Asian History. Minneapolis: Society for Ming Studies, 2008. This volume assembles twenty essays on the diverse ways that observers from the 14th to 20th centuries understood and attempted to use the legacy of the Ming founder. Especially noteworthy is that the contributors explore how Vietnamese, Korean, Mongolian, Muslim, Japanese, Manchu, and European authors wrote about Zhu Yuanzhang.
Taylor, Romeyn. “Yuan Origins of the Wei-so System.” Paper presented at the Research Conference on Ming Government held in 1965 at the University of Illinois. In Chinese Government in Ming Times: Seven Studies. Edited by Charles O. Hucker, 23–40. Studies in Oriental Culture 2. New York: Columbia University Press, 1969. Taylor shows that the hereditary military household system, a profoundly important Ming institution that directly shaped law, land tenure, taxes, demography, and military organization, had its origins in the preceding Mongol period.
de Heer, Philip. The Care-Taker Emperor: Aspects of the Imperial Institution of the Fifteenth Century, as Reflected in the Political History of the Reign of Chu Ch’i-yü, Seventh Ruler of the Ming Dynasty (1449–1457). Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1986. A detailed political history of what happened after the reigning emperor, Zhengtong, was seized by the Mongols while on campaign in 1449 and the Ming court had to find a new Son of Heaven in a hurry.
Robinson, David M. “Politics, Force and Ethnicity in Ming China: Mongols and the Abortive Coup of 1461.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 59.1 (June 1999): 79–123. A narrative of an abortive coup in 1461, launched by military officers in response to efforts to purge the senior ranks of civil and military authorities of men who owed their position to participation in the 1457 coup that put Zhengtong back on the throne. Available online by subscription. DOI: 10.2307/2652684
Swope, Kenneth. “All Men Are Not Brothers: Ethnic Identity and Dynasty Loyalty in the Ningxia Mutiny of 1592.” Late Imperial China 24.1 (2003): 79–129. A detailed narrative of a mutiny in the northwest corner of the Ming Empire, by an imperial military commander who was of Mongol descent and who openly appealed to Mongols on the steppe. DOI: 10.1353/late.2003.0010
Taylor, Romeyn. “Yuan Origins of the Wei-so System.” Paper presented at the Research Conference on Ming Government held in 1965 at the University of Illinois. In Chinese Government in Ming Times: Seven Studies. Edited by Charles O. Hucker, 23–40. Studies in Oriental Culture 2. New York: Columbia University Press, 1969. Taylor shows that the hereditary military household system had its origins in the preceding Mongol period.
Jagchid, Sechin, and Van Jay Symons. Peace, War, and Trade along the Great Wall: Nomadic-Chinese Interaction through Two Millennia. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989. An account of long-term relations between China and various steppe groups, with extensive and detailed discussion of developments during the Ming period.
Johnston, Alastair Iain. Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese History. Princeton Studies in International History and Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995. Challenging long-standing notions about the traditional defensive orientation of the Chinese military, this monograph combines political science theory, a close reading of military texts, and political/military actions taken by the Ming court vis-à-vis the Mongols. Johnston concludes that Ming policy demonstrated a clear preference for coercive, offensively oriented strategy.
Rossabi, Morris. “The Ming and Inner Asia.” In The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 8, The Ming Dynasty, 1368–1644, Part 2. Edited by Frederick W. Mote and Denis Twitchett, 221–271. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998. A concise and clear review of Ming-Mongol relations that draws on the author’s decades of research and dozens of his essays (conveniently listed in footnote 1, p. 221).
Waldron, Arthur. The Great Wall of China: From History to Myth. Cambridge Studies in Chinese History, Literature, and Institutions. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Waldron looks at Ming strategic choices vis-à-vis the Mongols. One set of choices resulted in the Great Wall.
Miles, Stephen B. “Imperial Discourse, Regional Elite, and Local Landscape on the South China Frontier, 1577–1722.” Journal of Early Modern History 12.2 (2008): 99–136. Traces the discursive strategies of Chinese elites to describe their expansion control in the Southwest by drawing on the rhetoric of the imperial state as a civilizing enterprise that brought Confucian education, rites, music, and modes of governance to an alien and barbaric Other. Available online for purchase or by subscription. DOI: 10.1163/138537808X334313
Robinson, David M. “Images of Subject Mongols under the Ming Dynasty.” Late Imperial China 25.1 (June 2004): 59–123. A detailed examination of how the Mongols were incorporated into the administrative structures of the Ming dynasty and how they came to be represented in administrative geographies. DOI: 10.1353/late.2004.0010
Robinson, David M. “The Ming Court and the Legacy of the Yuan Mongols.” In Culture, Courtiers, and Competition: The Ming Court (1368–1644). Edited by David M. Robinson, 365–421. Harvard East Asian Monograph 301. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2008. Drawing on imperial portraiture, funerary figurines from princely tombs, and patterns of court patronage for Tibetan Buddhism, this essay argues that through the early 16th century, several Ming emperors attempted to cultivate a persona as a Mongol qaghan, a “khan of khans.”
Serruys, Henry. The Mongols in China during the Hung-wu Period, 1368–1398. Mélanges chinois et bouddhiques 11. Brussels: Institut Belge des Hautes Études Chinoises, 1959a. A detailed account of the continued presence of Mongols in China under early Mongol rule, on the basis of close examination of Ming-period primary documents. Reprinted as recently as 1980.
Serruys, Henry. “Were the Ming against the Mongols’ Settling in North China?” Oriens Extremus 6.2 (1959b): 131–159. On the basis of a close reading Ming imperial annals, Serruys argues that while some statements by early Ming emperors might suggest otherwise, the Ming government actively encouraged Mongol migration to China through land grants, government posts, and other incentives.
Serruys, Henry. “Foreigners in the Metropolitan Police during the Fifteenth Century.” Oriens Extremus 8.1 (1961): 59–83. Sifting through the Ming Veritable Records, Serruys documents that large numbers of Mongol and Jurchen men were incorporated into the most-elite units of the capital garrisons from the late 14th to mid-15th centuries.
Serruys, Henry. “Landgrants to the Mongols in China: 1400–1460.” Monumenta Serica 25 (1966): 394–405. On the basis of a close reading of Ming imperial annals, Serruys argues that the Ming government actively encouraged Mongol migration to China through land grants, government posts, and other incentives. Available online by subscription.
Shin, Leo K. The Making of the Chinese State: Ethnicity and Expansion on the Ming Borderlands. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Describes the creation of ethnic labels as a by-product of expanding state administrative structures and family strategies in the southwestern borderlands of the empire. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511523953
Chang, Michael G. A Court on Horseback: Imperial Touring and the Construction of Qing Rule, 1680–1785. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007. The Southern Tours of the Kangxi and, particularly, the Qianlong emperors were, among other things, projections of imperial power to the prosperous regions of the lower Yangzi region. They brought the emperor out of the palace, demonstrated the logistic talent of the Manchu and Mongol military officials, and could serve as a way to lessen tensions between a dynasty founded on the banner institution and the Han Chinese elite.
Heuschert, Dorothea. Die Gesetzgebung der Qing für die Mongolen im 17. Jahrhundert, anhand des Mongolischen Gesetzbuches aus der Kangxi-Zeit (1662–1722). Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1998. Discusses the development of law in early Qing and how traditional Mongolian and Chinese law was activated to serve the new rulers. Includes translations from the law book with details of rule over the Mongols. Rather technical.
Crossley, Pamela Kyle, Helen P. Siu, and Donald S. Sutton, eds. Empire at the Margins: Culture, Ethnicity, and Frontier in Early Modern China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. Brings together twelve studies by specialists on regions from Mongolia over East Turkestan and how the smaller ethnic groups in the south were dealt with. Also Hainan and southern coastal regions. Omitted are Manchuria and Tibet. Originated in a 1996 conference, but papers are updated so it is a good place to get an overview over recent studies.
Dabringhaus, Sabine. Das Qing-Imperium als Vision und Wirklichkeit: Tibet im Laufbahn und Schriften des Song Yun (1752–1835). Stuttgart: Steiner, 1994. Song Yun 松筠 of the Mongol Plain Blue Banner was amban in Lhasa 1794–1799 after the war with Nepal. His writings about Tibet, both general knowledge and more practical administrative, are used here to study how bureaucratic government was introduced to replace, or at least weaken, the power of the nobility and the Lamaist hierarchy.
Perdue, Peter C. China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia. Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2005. An exhaustive study of the Central Asian policies of the Qing dynasty up to around 1760 and the conquest of the Mongols and East Turkestanis. Includes studies of the Mongols, particularly the Zunghar state, and how it was eliminated by the Qing and the Russians. Uses sources in a variety of languages, but there are still a few to explore.
Kotkin, Stephen. “Mongol Commonwealth? Exchange and Governance Across the Post-Mongol Space.” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 8.3 (2007): 487–531. Kotkin seeks to characterize the nature of the post-Soviet space by critically assessing the uses and misuses of the term “Eurasia.” DOI: 10.1353/kri.2007.0040
Wong, R. Bin. 2006. China’s agrarian empire: A different kind of empire, a different kind of lesson. In Lessons of empire: Imperial histories and American power. Edited by Craig J. Calhoun, Frederick Cooper, and Kevin W. Moore, 189–200. New York: New Press. This study of China as an empire is part of an edited volume comparing the United States with other historical empires. The Chinese empires were ruled mainly through persuasion and negotiation rather than brute force, Wong argues, and they treated most of their subjects as equals rather than creating or reinforcing cultural differences (as in European empires). China also differs insofar as the modern nation-state occupies the same territory as “a previous agrarian empire” (pp. 198–199), whereas most European empires lost significant amounts of territory in the transitions to nation-state status.
Nicolle, David. Medieval Siege Weapons: Byzantium, the Islamic World and India, AD 476–1526. Oxford: Osprey, 2003. This is a solid, illustrated work on mechanical siege weapons and the gradual transition to gunpowder artillery as a siege weapon in the Late-Roman or Byzantine Empire, the Islamic world, and the Mongol “world empire.” The book examines stone-throwing machines that relied upon from torsion, manpowered sling devices, and even rockets.
Amitai, Reuven, ed. The Mongol Empire and Its Legacy. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1999. An edited work that encompasses the entire subject area, including military organization and operations.
Jackson, Peter. The Mongols and the West, 1221–1410. Harlow, UK: Pearson Longman, 2005. Jackson provides a predominantly Western view of the Mongols in a solid work that focuses on the interactions, including military systems, between the West and the Mongols in a period that spans more than two hundred years.
May, Timothy Michael. The Mongol Art of War: Chinggis Khan and the Mongol Military System. Yardley, PA: Westholme, 2007. May’s highly readable study provides a detailed description of Chinggis Khan’s military forces, including the uses of militia and volunteer forces in his campaigns.
Saunders, J. J. The History of the Mongol Conquests. London: Routledge, 1971. While this work is dated, Saunders still provides one of the best overviews of the Mongol Empire and its military.
Nicolle, David. Crusader Warfare. Vol. 2, Muslims, Mongols and the Struggle against the Crusades. London: Hambledon, Continuum, 2007b. Completes the work of Volume 1 (Nicolle 2007a), bringing the author’s considerable knowledge of Islamic military history to the fore, and covering contemporary Muslim warfare with the Mongols as well as the crusaders. Once again, a broadly contextualized study.
Raphael, Kate. Muslim Fortresses in the Levant: Between Crusaders and Mongols. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2011. An important examination of the strategic role of Muslim fortresses in the Levant and their development during the period of the Crusades and the Mongol invasions.
Mathee, Rudi. “From Coffee to Tea: Shifting Patterns of Consumption in Qajar Iran.” Journal of World History 43 (1999): 228–240. Careful historical study of the origins of coffee and tea consumption in Iran in relationship to religious and political connections between Iran, Europe, and Asia. Argues that tea was introduced to the Middle East by the Mongols in the 13th century, and coffee introduced into Iran from Arabia by way of Ottoman pilgrim traffic. Detailed references to Persian and European accounts of Safavid and Qajar practices. See also Matthee’s “Coffee in Safavid Iran: Commerce and Consumption,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 37 (1994): 1–32.
Tlili, Sarra. “Animals Would Follow Shāfiʿism: Legitimate and Illegitimate violence to Animals in Medieval Islamic Thought.” In Violence in Islamic Thought from the Qur’ān to the Mongols. Edited by Robert Gleave and Istvan T. Kristo-Nagy, 225–244. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015. Based on a comparative analysis of Islamic legal discussions regarding lawful and unlawful methods of slaughter, types of animals whose meat may and may not be consumed, and other issues relating to the treatment of live animals, the author argues that the Shafiʿi school maintains the most human perspective on animal rights.
Wallace, Vesna, trans. The Kālacakratantra: The Chapter on the Individual Together with the Vimalaprabhā. New York: American Institute of Buddhist Studies at Columbia University, 2004. Remarkable critical translation of the second chapter of this early 11th-century Indo-Tibetan tantric scripture, together with its Vimalaprabhā commentary, based on Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Mongolian recensions.
Ostrowski, Donald G. Muscovy and the Mongols: Cross-Cultural Influences on the Steppe Frontier, 1304–1589. New York and Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998. An accessible work of synthesis, useful for its examination of how the Mongols influenced state and military institutions.
Hyland, Ann. The Medieval Warhorse from Byzantium to the Crusades. Stroud, UK: Sutton, 1994. Careful attention is paid to horse breeding and the physical characteristics of medieval mounts. Hyland does not argue for abrupt changes from one equestrian culture to another over time or place but points rather to interrelated developments that made the horse indispensable to the militaries of both East and West.
Perdue, Peter C. China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia. Reprint. Cambridge, MA, and London: Belknap, 2010. A magisterial narrative of the 18th-century Qing dynasty destruction of the Zungar Mongols, and the massive expansion of Qing territory westward. Essentially three or four books in one. Certain to remain the definitive account for a long time.
Hunyadi, Zsolt. “The Teutonic Order in Burzenland (1211–1225): new re-considerations.” In L’Ordine Teutonico tra Mediterraneo e Baltico: incontri e scontri tra religioni, popoli e culture. Edited by Hubert Houben and Kristjan Toomaspoeg, 151–170. Acta Teutonica 5. Galatino, Italy: Mario Congedo, 2008. Bari-Lecce-Brindisi, 14–16 September 2006. It is an old problem why the Teutonic knights were expelled from Hungary even though they worked professionally. The author offers a new interpretation concerning the Cuman and Mongol relations.
Göckenjan, Hansgerd. “Der Westfeldzug (1236–1242) aus mongolischer Sicht.” In Ungarn, Türken und Mongolen: Kleine Schriften von Hansgerd Göckenjan. Edited by Michael Knüppel and Eberhard Winkler, 179–218. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz, 2007. A massive summary of the Hungarian and Polish campaign of the Tartars.
Laszlovszky, József. “Material Remains of the Mongolian Invasion in Hungary and Development-led Archaeology.” Hungarian Archeology E Journal (Spring 2012). During the 1990s, while building new motor highways, important excavations opened up traces of the Tartar destruction and hidden treasures.
Dienst, Heide. Die Schlacht an der Leitha 1246. Vienna: Österreichischer Bundesverlag, 1978. The Hungarian participation in the battle is decisive proof of the very quick recovery of the Hungarian kingdom and army after the Mongol invasion.
Bak, János M., Martyn Rady, and László Veszprémy, eds. Anonymous, Notary of King Béla, The Deeds of the Hungarians, Master Roger’s Epistle to the Sorrowful Lament about the Destruction of Hungary by the Tartars. Budapest and New York: CEU, 2010. This is the first English translation of Master Roger’s work on the Tartar invasion.
Kumar, Sunil. The Emergence of the Delhi Sultanate. New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2007. A major new study of the first one hundred years of the Delhi Sultanate, which indicates, among other things, the military and political acumen of its rulers and the role played by Muslim émigrés fleeing the Mongol conquerors.
May, Timothy. The Mongol Art of War: Chinggis Khan and the Mongol Military System. Yardley, PA: Westholme, 2007. May’s work is directed toward the military system that evolved under the Mongol dynastic leadership that reached its apogee under Chinggis Khan (1162–1227 CE). The Mongol Art of War lucidly demonstrates how the steppe warriors were inventive and adaptive in their modification of traditional raiding-style irregular warfare and evolved into a more conventional military force, albeit with distinct guerrilla-type tactics.
Ostrowski, Donald. “Simeon Bekbulatovich’s Remarkable Career as Tatar Khan, Grand Prince of All Rus’, and Monastic Elder.” Russian History 39 (2012): 269–299. A comprehensive survey of the evidence and explanations of Ivan’s abdication to Simeon Bekbulatovich, concluding that Ivan was preempting the plan of some Muscovite boyars, reported in the account of Daniel Printz, to make the Crimean khan the ruler of Russia because only a Chingissid could be a true khan/tsar. DOI: 10.1163/18763316-03903001
Grousset, René. The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia. Translated by Naomi Walford. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers, 1970. Treats briefly the essential military characteristics of the steppe warrior, though with some exaggeration about the practical range of the composite bow. Though dated, the book is still useful and was long a standard text on the history of the many steppe tribes of central Asia. Now superseded by Sinor 1990 (cited under Modern Works Treating Specific Peoples).
Hildinger, Erik. Warriors of the Steppe: A Military History of Central Asia, 500 B.C. to 1700 A.D. New York: Sarpedon, 1997. Apparently the only general history of nomadic steppe-style warfare. It contains chapters dealing with nomadism, the essential combination of horse and bow, strategy and tactics, and the activities of the most significant of the nomadic warrior societies, or those settled societies that retained or adopted their military techniques.
Jones, Archer. The Art of War in the Western World. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987. Chapter 2, “The Diversity of the Medieval Ways of War,” treats briefly, but perceptively, the Mongol approach to war from a primarily strategic and logistical viewpoint.
Keegan, John. A History of Warfare. New York: Vintage, 1994. Chapter 3, “Flesh,” discusses in some detail the various aspects of nomadic life that work to mold nomads into successful warriors. Chambers, James. The Devil’s Horsemen: The Mongol Invasion of Europe. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1979. A vivid and detailed account of the Mongol conquest of the Russian principalities 1236–1238 and of the Mongols’ subsequent incursions further west into Hungary and Poland in 1240–1241. There are detailed descriptions of the major battles.
Morgan, David. The Mongols. 2d ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007. Up-to-date general work on the Mongols. Scholarly and succinct.
Ratchnevsky, Paul. Genghis Khan: His Life and Legacy. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1991. Concentrates, as the title suggests, on the rise of Genghis Khan, necessarily covering his military campaigns. Quite detailed and therefore useful as an introduction to the conqueror.
Sinor, Dennis, ed. The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Detailed treatment of most of the significant steppe nomads with sections about specific peoples written by specialists. DOI: 10.1017/CHOL9780521243049
Juvaini, Ala-ad-Din Ata-Malik. History of the World Conqueror. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1958. Contains an account of the hunt used to train Mongol troops.
May, Timothy. “The Training of an Inner Asian Nomad Army in the Pre-Modern Period.” Journal of Military History 70.3 (July 2006): 617–635. Describes the training of the Mongol army in the steppe before campaigns, thus illustrating the qualities that the nomads judged necessary to perfect and use in warfare. Available online by subscription. DOI: 10.1353/jmh.2006.0179
Zenkovsky, Serge A., ed. and trans. “Battle on the River Kalka.” In Medieval Russia’s Epics, Chronicles, and Tales. Edited and translated by Serge A. Zenkovsky, 193–195. New York: Penguin, 1974. Contemporary account of a major Russian defeat by Mongols. Originally published in 1963.
Amitai-Preiss, Reuven. Mamluks and Mongols: The Mamluk-Ilkhanid War, 1260–1281. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995. A detailed treatment of the campaign leading up to the defeat of the Mongol army by Egyptian Mamluks in 1260. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511563485
Giovanni da Pian del Carpine (Giovanni di Plano Carpini). The History of the Mongols Whom We Call the Tartars. Translated by Erik Hildinger. Boston: Branden, 1996. Contains an account of an audience with Batu Khan, leader of the Golden Horde.
Juvaini, Ata-Malik. Genghis Khan: The History of the World Conqueror by ʻAla-ad-Din ʻAta-Malik Juvaini. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1997. Thirteenth-century account by a Persian court official of the Mongol conquests resulting in the establishment of the Il-Khanate. Translated from the text of Mizra Muhammad Qazvini by J. A. Boyle.
Rashīd al-Dīn Tabīb. Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh. In The History of India, as Told by Its Own Historians. Vol. 3, The Muhammadan Years. Edited from the posthumous papers of H. M. Elliot by John Dowson, 1–23. London: Trübner, 1871. A major primary source for the history of the Ilkhanate written at the command of the Il-khan Mahmud Ghazan to preserve the memory of the Mongols’ nomadic origins and history. The various manuscripts contain valuable illustrations.
Ratchnevsky, Paul. Genghis Khan: His Life and Legacy. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1991. Well-researched, standard text focusing on Genghis Khan and his rise.
Thorau, Peter. The Lion of Egypt: Sultan Baybars I and the Near East in the Thirteenth Century. Translated by P. M. Holt. London: Longman, 1995. Well-regarded treatment of the life of this Mamluk Sultan. Revised and reorganized from the original German edition. Treats one of Baybars’s greatest achievements: defeating the Mongol army at the Battle of Ayn Jalut.
Waley, Arthur. Secret History of the Mongols, and Other Pieces. Translated by Arthur Waley. London: Allen and Unwin, 1963. Thirteenth-century Mongol account of the life of Genghis Khan some time after his death. Essentially the only Mongol account of the life of Genghis Khan.
Halperin, Charles J. Russia and the Golden Horde: The Mongol Impact on Medieval Russian History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987. A detailed examination of the effect of the Tatar yoke on many aspects of Russian culture.
Weatherford, Jack. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. New York: Three Rivers, 2004. A detailed account of the rise of Genghis Khan that argues for a more sympathetic view of his activities and the effects of his conquests than has been generally held.
Heberstein, Sigismund. Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii. Frankfurt: Minerva, 1964. This diplomat to the court of the Russian Czar in the 16th century describes the Russian army of the period. The text shows how closely it resembled the forces of the Mongols and the successor Tatar states that it faced. He also discusses the establishment of forts along the frontier to discourage their raiding.
Ostrowski, Donald. “The Replacement of the Composite Reflex Bow by Firearms in the Muscovite Cavalry.” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 11.3 (Summer 2010): 513–534. Argues that the replacement of the composite bow by much less effective firearms in the Russian cavalry was the result of a shift in the use of cavalry from an offensive to a defense arm. Available online for purchase or by subscription. DOI: 10.1353/kri.0.0176
Halperin, Charles J. Russia and the Golden Horde: The Mongol Impact on Medieval Russian History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987. Chapter 9 discusses Russian-Tatar military alliances and arrangements for the support of Tatar princes as military allies.
Fletcher, Joseph. “The Mongols: Ecological and Social Perspectives.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 46.1 (June 1986): 11–50. A thought-provoking examination of the relationship between the ecology of the steppe and the activities of the Mongols. Available online by subscription. DOI: 10.2307/2719074
Collins, L. J. D. “The Military Organization and Tactics of the Crimean Tatars during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.” In War, Technology and Society in the Middle East. Edited by V. J. Parry and M. E. Yapp, 257–276. London: Oxford University Press, 1975. Indicates that Crimean Tatar nobles, in contrast to commoners, rode barbs and Arab horses.
“Ardashir Fighting Bahman.” Detroit Institute of Arts. A particularly clear Persian painting in the Detroit Institute of Arts depicting warriors in 13th–14th-century Mongol lamellar armor.
Herberstein, Sigismund von. Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii. Frankfurt: Minerva, 1964. A well-known woodcut from this work depicts 16th-century Russian cavalry equipped in the manner of the Tatars they faced: they wear pointed helmets and long quilted coats as armor and are armed with recurve, composite bows, sabers, and maces.
Rashīd al-Dīn Tabīb. Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh. In The History of India, as Told by Its Own Historians. Vol. 3, The Muhammadan Years. Edited from the posthumous papers of H. M. Elliot by John Dowson, 1–23. London: Trübner, 1871. The various contemporary manuscripts (or their reproductions) depict Mongol warriors and military operations. This work is the source of some of the most widely reproduced contemporary illustrations of Mongol warriors. Primary Sources
Dawson, Christopher, ed. The Mongol Mission: Narratives and Letters of the Franciscan Missionaries in Mongolia and China in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1955. This valuable collection of the writings of missionaries in medieval Asia includes William of Rubruck’s account of his mission to the court of the Mongol Khan in 1254.
Giovanni da Pian del Carpine (Giovanni di Plano Carpini). The History of the Mongols Whom We Call the Tartars. Translated by Erik Hildinger. Boston: Branden, 1996. Account by a Dominican friar who was sent by the pope as his emissary to the court of the Mongol Khan in 1247. He describes the Mongol army, its organization and tactics, as well as their weapons and the construction of their armor. The work is also available in another translation in Dawson 1955, cited in this section.
Polo, Marco. The Travels of Marco Polo. Edited by Peter Harris. London: Everyman, 2008. Gives a contemporary description of Mongol military equipment.


Komaroff, Linda, and Stefano Carboni, eds. The Legacy of Genghis Khan: Courtly Art and Culture in Western Asia 1256–1353. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002.
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The catalogue of an important and revelatory exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Allsen, Thomas T. Commodity and Exchange in the Mongol Empire: A Cultural History of Islamic Textiles. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
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Although the title indicates that this is a cultural history of Islamic textiles, the author concentrates on one type of cloth, nasij, which was made from gold and silk. This type of cloth was regarded as a Mongolian product and imported throughout the Islamic and Christian world in the medieval period.


Polk, William R. Understanding Iraq. London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2006.
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Written by a long-time expert on the Middle East, this highly readable work provides the turning points in the history of Iraq from the first Sumerian settlements, the arrival of Islam, invasion of Mongols, long administration of the Ottomans, to the unsettled 20th century and the post-American invasion administration.
Nicolle, David. Medieval Siege Weapons: Byzantium, the Islamic World and India, AD 476–1526. Oxford: Osprey, 2003.
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This is a solid, illustrated work on mechanical siege weapons and the gradual transition to gunpowder artillery as a siege weapon in the Late-Roman or Byzantine Empire, the Islamic world, and the Mongol “world empire.” The book examines stone-throwing machines that relied upon from torsion, manpowered sling devices, and even rockets.
Amitai, Reuven, ed. The Mongol Empire and Its Legacy. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1999.
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An edited work that encompasses the entire subject area, including military organization and operations.


Jackson, Peter. The Mongols and the West, 1221–1410. Harlow, UK: Pearson Longman, 2005.
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Jackson provides a predominantly Western view of the Mongols in a solid work that focuses on the interactions, including military systems, between the West and the Mongols in a period that spans more than two hundred years.
May, Timothy Michael. The Mongol Art of War: Chinggis Khan and the Mongol Military System. Yardley, PA: Westholme, 2007.
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May’s highly readable study provides a detailed description of Chinggis Khan’s military forces, including the uses of militia and volunteer forces in his campaigns.
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Saunders, J. J. The History of the Mongol Conquests. London: Routledge, 1971.
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While this work is dated, Saunders still provides one of the best overviews of the Mongol Empire and its military.
Mathee, Rudi. “From Coffee to Tea: Shifting Patterns of Consumption in Qajar Iran.” Journal of World History 43 (1999): 228–240.
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Careful historical study of the origins of coffee and tea consumption in Iran in relationship to religious and political connections between Iran, Europe, and Asia. Argues that tea was introduced to the Middle East by the Mongols in the 13th century, and coffee introduced into Iran from Arabia by way of Ottoman pilgrim traffic. Detailed references to Persian and European accounts of Safavid and Qajar practices. See also Matthee’s “Coffee in Safavid Iran: Commerce and Consumption,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 37 (1994): 1–32.

Mongol Central Asia

Lambton, Ann K. S. Continuity and Change in Medieval Persia: Aspects of Administrative, Economic, and Social History, 11th–14th Century. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988. An excellent study, with relevance to Central Asia under the Saljuqs, Khwarazmshahs, and Mongols.
Biran, Michal. Qaidu and the Rise of the Independent Mongol State in Central Asia. Richmond, UK: Curzon, 1997. Important study of the state formed by the Ögedeyid Qaydu, with Chaghatayid support, in the second half of the 13th century.
al Dīn Faẓlullāh, Rashīd. The Successors of Genghis Khan. Translated by John Andrew Boyle. New York: Columbia University Press, 1971. English translation of a section from Rashid al-Din’s monumental history covering Mongol rule in Central Asia down to the early 14th century.
Jackson, Peter. “The Dissolution of the Mongol Empire.” Central Asiatic Journal 22 (1978): 186–244. Seminal article outlining the fault lines that emerged in the Mongol empire ca. 1260, with special importance for the Chaghatayid and Jochid realms in Central Asia.
Jackson, Peter. “Chaghatayid Dynasty.” In Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. 5. Edited by Ehsan Yarshater, 343–347. Winona Lake, IN: Encyclopaedia Iranica Foundation, 1992. The best survey of the history of the Chaghatayid dynasty in Central Asia. Available online.
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Juvaynī, ‘Aʿā-malik. The History of the World-Conqueror. Translated by J. A. Boyle. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958. English translation of the major Islamic source on the Mongol conquest, covering Central Asia down to ca. 1260. Reprinted by University of Washington (Seattle) Press in 1997.
Biran, Michal. “The Chaghadaids and Islam: The Conversion of Tarmashirin Khan (1331–34).” Journal of the American Oriental Society 122, no. 4 (2002): 742–752. Studies the evidence on the adoption of Islam by a Chaghatayid khan of the early 14th century. DOI: 10.2307/3217613
DeWeese, Devin. Islamization and Native Religion in the Golden Horde: Baba Tükles and Conversion to Islam in Historical and Epic Tradition. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994. Examines narrative traditions about the conversion to Islam of the Jochid ruler Özbek Khan, and about the saint credited with converting him.
Barthold, V. V. Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion. Translated by V. Minorsky and T. Minorsky; edited by C. E. Bosworth. 4th ed. E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Series, n.s., 5. London: E.J.W. Gibb Memorial Trust, 1977. Still the essential work on the pre-Mongol era (the English translation includes a supplementary chapter on Mongol rule into the second half of the 13th century).


Mongol Iran
Blair, Sheila. “Il-khanids. ii. Architecture.” In Encyclopaedia Iranica. 2004. A comprehensive overview of the manner in which Mongol and later Il-khanid architecture adapted to Iran and Islam.
Daftary, Farhad, ed. Mediaeval Isma’ili History and Thought. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996. An excellent collection of essays covering all aspects of Ismaili thought in this period.
Jamal, Nadia Eboo. Surviving the Mongols: Nizārī Quhistānī and the Continuity of Ismaili Tradition in Persia. London: I.B. Tauris, 2002. Argues that Ismailism in Iran survived the immediate aftermath of the Mongols’ successful assault on Alamut.
Lane, George. Early Mongol Rule in Thirteenth-Century Iran: A Persian Renaissance. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. Excellent discussion of the manner in which the Mongols adapted to the “high culture” of the Iranian plateau.
Lewisohn, Leonard, ed. The Heritage of Sufism: Legacy of Medieval Persian Sufism (1150–1500). Oxford: Oneworld, 1999. The second of Lewisohn’s edited volumes on Sufism in Iran, this volume includes essays on Rumi and other key figures and Sufi orders, as well as Sufi music and Neoplatonic influences.
Morgan, David. The Mongols. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2007. An excellent overview of the Mongols, including their activity in Iran.