Michael: Alright Kevin, quick—what’s the first word that comes to mind when I say 'Genghis Khan'? Kevin: Skulls. Just... a truly unreasonable number of skulls. Maybe a cool mustache. But mostly skulls. Michael: Perfect. That's exactly the image this book is here to demolish. And it’s an image that has been very deliberately crafted over centuries. Kevin: Oh, I'm sure the people whose cities he leveled had a hand in that crafting. Seems fair. Michael: It does, but the story is so much more complex. Today we’re diving into Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford. And what's fascinating is that Weatherford isn't a traditional historian; he's an anthropologist who spent nearly two decades in Mongolia, even living with nomadic families, to get this story. Kevin: An anthropologist? That's a different angle. So he's looking at the culture, the 'why,' not just the battles and the body count. Michael: Exactly. He’s looking at the system. And that’s where you find the modern world. But to even get to that, you first have to find the man himself, which has been surprisingly difficult. As a modern Mongolian song puts it, "We imagined your appearance but our minds were blank." Kevin: Huh. You’d think the most famous conqueror in history would have statues and paintings everywhere. Why a blank? Michael: That blank is the first mystery. He didn't allow any portraits. The Mongols didn't write their own history for outsiders. What we have are descriptions from the people he conquered, who, as you can imagine, weren't exactly fans. And in the 20th century, there were active, violent campaigns to erase him from memory entirely.

Kevin: Wait, hold on. Erase him? Why would anyone in the 20th century care enough about a 13th-century warlord to try and erase him? He was long gone. Michael: Because to the Mongol people, he never really left. Weatherford starts with this incredible story. For centuries, the soul of Genghis Khan was believed to reside in a Spirit Banner, or Sulde, kept in a monastery. Kevin: A Spirit Banner? What exactly is that? Michael: On the steppes, a warrior’s banner was made from the hair of his favorite horse, tied to a spear. It was his personal standard, his guardian. When he died, his soul was believed to enter the banner. Genghis Khan had a special one, made from the hair of hundreds of white stallions, and it became the soul of the Mongol nation. It was venerated for over 700 years. Kevin: Wow, okay. So it's like a physical embodiment of his spirit and the nation's identity. Michael: Precisely. And in 1937, during Stalin's purges in Mongolia, Soviet troops were systematically destroying monasteries and executing monks to crush Mongolian culture. They arrived at the monastery holding the Sulde, and in the chaos, someone secretly rescued it and smuggled it away. But it eventually disappeared. Its fate is still unknown. Kevin: That’s incredible. They literally stole the soul of the nation. It’s one thing to tear down a statue, but that’s on another level. Michael: And it didn't stop there. In 1962, Mongolia planned a small commemoration for the 800th anniversary of his birth. They prepared to issue some stamps and erect a simple monument. The Soviet Union reacted with fury. They saw it as a dangerous revival of nationalism. Kevin: For stamps? That seems like a bit of an overreaction. Michael: The Soviets forced them to cancel everything. The government official who approved it, a man named Tomor-ochir, was removed from office, banished to the countryside, and years later, he was murdered with an axe. The scholars involved were persecuted. All for trying to remember their own founder. Kevin: That's brutal. It paints a picture of a legacy so powerful that even centuries later, a superpower was terrified of it. But I have to push back a little here, because this is a critique the book often gets. It's received polarizing reviews for this very reason. Michael: How so? Kevin: Well, some readers and critics feel Weatherford's account is a bit too sympathetic. I get that the Soviets had their reasons to suppress his memory, but that doesn't change what he did, right? The book seems to be arguing for his positive legacy, but are we supposed to just glide past the staggering violence? We're still talking about the guy famous for, as I said, the skulls. Michael: That is the absolute core of the tension, and Weatherford doesn't glide past it. He confronts it head-on. The book's argument isn't that the violence didn't happen. The argument is that we have only focused on the violence and have therefore missed the world-changing system he built from the ashes. The destruction was the means, but it wasn't the end. Kevin: Okay, so what was the end? What's on the other side of that brutality that we're missing? Michael: A complete revolution in how the world worked. As the 13th-century English scientist Roger Bacon, watching from afar, put it, the Mongols have succeeded "by means of science."

Kevin: 'By means of science'? That is not a phrase I ever expected to be associated with the Mongol hordes. What science is he talking about? Michael: He's talking about a system. A rational, organized, and ruthlessly efficient system for everything. Let's start with the military, because that's the foundation. The Mongol army was tiny, never more than 100,000 men. Kevin: A hundred thousand? To conquer most of the known world? That seems impossible. The Roman Empire had legions upon legions. Michael: They did it with superior organization, discipline, and technology. They weren't just a wild cavalry charge. They moved in complex, coordinated formations. They perfected psychological warfare, often winning battles before they even began. And most importantly, they mastered siege warfare. They would capture engineers from one conquered city and force them to build siege engines to take the next. Genghis Khan effectively ended the 4,000-year-old era of the walled city. After him, walls were no longer a guarantee of safety. Kevin: So he was a military innovator, a disruptor. I can see that. But that still sounds like a more efficient way to create skulls. Where does the 'making of the modern world' part come in? Michael: It comes from what happened after the conquest. Once the fighting stopped, the Mongol mission changed completely. Genghis Khan's goal was to create a unified world system. First, he created the largest free-trade zone in history, stretching from the Pacific to the Mediterranean. Kevin: A free-trade zone? How? Michael: He secured the trade routes, like the Silk Road, that had become impossibly dangerous. He standardized weights and measures. He created a universal currency system. He even abolished taxes for doctors, teachers, priests, and other professionals to encourage the movement of talent and knowledge across his empire. Suddenly, a merchant could travel from Italy to China with a single passport, on safe roads, and trade freely. It was an explosion of commerce. Kevin: That's wild. It’s like he created a 13th-century version of the European Union, but with horses. Michael: And to run it, he needed communication. So he created the Yam, the world's first international postal system. It was a network of relay stations, stocked with fresh horses and riders, that could carry messages, goods, and diplomats at incredible speeds. Kevin: So the Yam was like a 13th-century FedEx on steroids? Michael: Exactly. An official message could travel about 200 miles a day, which was unheard of. This system connected disparate civilizations—China, Persia, Europe—in a way that had never happened before. Ideas, technologies, and information started flowing. Gunpowder, the compass, printing—they all moved west along these Mongol-protected routes. Kevin: Okay, this is starting to make more sense. He's not just conquering, he's connecting. But what about governing all these different peoples? You have Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, all thrown into one empire. That sounds like a recipe for disaster. Michael: This might be his most radical innovation. Genghis Khan declared universal religious freedom. As long as you prayed for him, he didn't care who you prayed to. His court was filled with advisors from every major religion. At a time when Europe was mired in religious wars and inquisitions, the Mongols established a secular state, where law was above any single religion. Kevin: That is genuinely shocking. Religious freedom as a state policy in the 1200s. It feels centuries ahead of its time. Michael: It was. He established the first system of international law, granting diplomatic immunity to all ambassadors. He conducted a census of his entire empire to create a more fair and predictable tax system. Weatherford's core point is that Genghis Khan, a man born into a violent, tribal world, created a system based on merit, free trade, secular law, and global communication. As the book says, "His architecture was not in stone but in nations." He didn't build castles; he built the framework for the modern world.

Kevin: Wow. So when you lay it all out like that, the picture changes completely. You start with this image of a barbarian, the destroyer of worlds. But piece by piece, you build a case for him as this... unlikely globalist. The architect of a system we'd recognize today. Michael: And that's the paradox at the heart of the book. The methods were often brutal, emerging from a world of constant, savage warfare. He unified the warring Mongol tribes through violence, and then he turned that unified force on the rest of the world. He tore down the old feudal order of aristocratic privilege and walled-off civilizations. Kevin: But what he built in its place was something new. Something based on principles that feel surprisingly modern. Michael: Exactly. A system where a commoner could rise to be a general. Where a merchant was safe to travel thousands of miles. Where ideas could cross continents. Weatherford uses this beautiful metaphor to describe his legacy. He says, "Like the tingling vibrations of a bell that we can still sense well after it has stopped ringing, Genghis Khan has long passed from the scene, but his influence continues to reverberate through our time." Kevin: That’s a powerful way to put it. It’s not about forgiving the brutality, but about understanding that history is complicated. The same force that destroyed one world could lay the foundation for the next. It’s wild to think that the roots of our interconnected, globalized society might lie with someone we’ve been taught to see as a monster. Michael: It really makes you question the simple narratives we're given about history. The villains and the heroes. The truth is almost always messier and far more interesting. Kevin: It definitely is. It makes me wonder what other historical figures we've got completely wrong. Who else is just waiting for an anthropologist to come along and re-examine their story? Michael: That's a great question for everyone listening to think about. We'd love to hear your thoughts. Who is a historical figure you think deserves a second look? Let us know through our social channels. We're always curious to see what you're thinking. Kevin: For now, my brain is buzzing with this idea of a 13th-century globalist. It's a lot to chew on. Michael: It certainly is. A testament to how history is never truly over. Kevin: This is Aibrary, signing off.