[Pen-l] Mongol

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

When I got an invitation to the premiere of "Mongol-Part One", the 
new film about Genghis Khan playing in theaters everywhere as they 
say, I jumped at the opportunity since it would give me exactly the 
excuse I needed to read Jack Weatherford's 2004 "Genghis Khan and the 
Making of the Modern World". After seeing the film, I can happily 
report that even if the movie was not a joy to watch (which it is) it 
jibes with the Weatherford's version of the great Mongol conqueror.

Weatherford, an anthropologist at Macalaster College in St. Paul, 
Minnesota, has devoted himself to challenging prejudices about the 
"savage" and showing their contributions to historical progress. 
Arguably, Genghis Khan is the most stunning example of this ever 
seen. As Weatherford puts it in the introduction to his book:

"The only permanent structures Genghis Khan erected were bridges. 
Although he spurned the building of castles, forts, cities, or walls, 
as he moved across the landscape, he probably built more bridges than 
any ruler in history. He spanned hundreds of streams and rivers in 
order to make the movement of his armies and goods quicker. The 
Mongols deliberately opened the world to a new commerce not only in 
goods, but also in ideas and knowledge. The Mongols brought German 
miners to China and Chinese doctors to Persia. The transfers ranged 
from the monumental to the trivial. They spread the use of carpets 
everywhere they went and transplanted lemons and carrots from Persia 
to China, as well as noodles, playing cards, and tea from China to 
the West. They brought a metalworker from Paris to build a fountain 
on the dry steppes of Mongolia, recruited an English nobleman to 
serve as interpreter in their army, and took the practice of Chinese 
fingerprinting to Persia. They financed the building of Christian 
churches in China, Buddhist temples and stupas in Persia, and Muslim 
Koranic schools in Russia. The Mongols swept across the globe as 
conquerors, but also as civilization's unrivaled cultural carriers."

full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2008/06/08/mongol/

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