Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

Do you ever play Chaos Butterfly? Imagining what the world would be like if a certain butterfly ten million years ago had flapped its wings this way instead of that? It can be briefly fun but primarily what it is is humbling: we get a glimmer of how insanely complex the universe is, how limited our imaginations are. Reading this book feels kind of like the opposite: wow, we think, look at all that happened because of this one man, and we try to subtract out all the destruction (and creation) that Genghis Khan wreaked, and we think we can picture that world ... but no, it's still Chaos Butterfly, and still a fruitless exercise. Complex systems just don't work that way, and our imaginations are hopelessly incapable of playing What-If. It's so damn tempting anyway, though.

Genghis Khan was in many ways responsible for the world we live in today. (So is Chaos Butterfly, but the Mongols left better written records). What this book does is gather up the best available sources – including some only made accessible within our lifetimes – and try to depict the personalities involved, all the way down, with much guesswork, to motivations and relationships. Weatherford paints a nuanced picture of Genghis Khan as someone who was “provoked” into fights but who also recognized the wondrous value of combining ideas and cultures, and hence led to a Golden Age of civilization and scientific discovery. What he covers a little less is the suffering he caused, unequaled before or since: the deaths, enslavements, the unimaginable violence and cruelty he inflicted. He was not a barbarian: he was intelligent and thoughtful, and that somehow makes it feel worse.

But that's just me. It's possible, I suppose, to read this book and feel nothing but awe and gratitude to the Khans for how they shaped the world's societies. Some may even argue that Great Good usually comes from Great Disruptions, that you need to crack some eggs for that omelet. I choose to see it another way: I think that Great Good comes no matter what, because that's the very nature of a species that has evolved to cooperate. I do agree that disruptions can be sources of great progress. Willful cruelty, though, no. Fuck that and fuck the orange-topped traitor-cockroaches who pursue it and fuck those who enable it.

Oh, yeah, the book. I found much of it painful to read, in the sense of thinking of the violence and harm happening to so many lives. Despite that I learned history I didn't know and gained perspectives I hadn't thought of before. So, yeah, I hesitantly recommend it: read it, gain from it, but be prepared for an interesting ride