The Formless Empire

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Until I listened to Professor Harls' lectures from the Great Courses about [[ASIN:1629970352 The Barbarian Empires of the Steppes]], I had always taken the steppe nomads for granted. They seem to sweep in from stage right - if you're Europe - or stage left - if you're Chinese (but actually “stage north” from the nomads' perspective, as Professor Harl points out), but I had never considered them as a subject in themselves.

The reality is that the steppes have always played a huge role in human civilization, a role that covers 6,000 years and 6,000 miles. The steppes impinge on the civilized peoples of the world of Persia, Rome, China, and their successors. Ignoring steppe history is simply foolish.

This book is an excellent follow-up on Professor Harl's lectures. The author, Christopher Mott, has an overriding thesis about how the geography and culture of the Steppes formed the political culture of the steppe barbarians. Mott's essential point is that the huge, open area of the steppes, with the diversity of cultures and language, and the fluidity of population created by a horse culture without cities, shaped the successive steppe empires into a common method of empire that involved fluid military tactics, rule through local elites, the maintenance of some strong points, and a generally more tolerant approach to rulership than was found in more static cultures. After making this argument, he visits virtually every culture that formed on the steppes from 2,000 BS to the modern day.

It is a fascinating story. I learned more about the peoples of the steppes and their civilizations, kingdoms and empires than I ever have. More importantly, I was able to start connecting events with each other and to gain an appreciation for the Transoxanian cultures that today we tend to view as insignificant and unimportant. As penance for my prior attitudes, I have made a game of memorizing the names of the 5 Muslim former-Soviet states in order from west to east - Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. (Thank you, Spellcheck!)

What was particularly interesting was Mott's observations on how the steppes are eventually subjugated by the Russia and China, and the future of the steppes. Russia has a lot of underpopulated steppe and forest country, while China has a lot of population. China has historically hegemonized former non-Chinese territory by sending Han Chinese into Xinjiang. Might that be a future strategy for an upsurging China and a declining Russia?

This is a fairly short, informative and well-written book. I recommend it, perhaps in conjunction with the Harl lectures.