Week 9. Nov 2 – 4. EURASIA
Spatial Mobility in Chinggisid Turko-Mongol Imperial Territory
Theme: Military mobility promotes commercial expansion and accumulation, and Mongol imperial space long outlives the empire.
A Lecture: Nicola di Cosmo: “Environmental Aspects of the Mongol Conquest”. November 5th, 8AM EST/9PM CST — 5PM in Abu Dhabi. (Here is a link to the recording.) Here are links to his 2016 report on the environmental reasons for Mongol withdrawal from Hungary, its 2017 critique, and his 2014 essay on environmental conditions that sustained Mongol expansion.
A Seminar: “Mobility, Power, and Knowledge in the Mongol Empire,” featuring Ahmed al-Rahim. Associate Professor and Director of Islamic Studies, University of Virginia, November 3, 2020, 4:00-5:30pm in Boston 1AM in AD — Harvard Islamic Studies Program. RSVP for Zoom link. (Will post the recording.)
Reading:
David Morgan, “The Decline and Fall of the Mongol Empire.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 19, no. 4, 2009, pp. 427–37. (PDF online)
Pavel Osinsky, “The Rise and Fall of the Nomad-Dominated Empires of Eurasia,” March 2020, Sociological Inquiry (PDF online), (26pp, but especially pp. 11-18)
James A Millward, Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang, Columbia University Press, 2007. (PDF online), pp. 40-78.
Peter Bozian, “The Role of Ortoy Merchants in the Mongolian Court: From the Rise of the Mongol Empire to the Fall of the Yuan Dynasty,” in Emory Endeavors in World History, Volume 6, pp.90-106.
Angela Schottenhammer, editor. Early Global Interconnectivity Across the Indian Ocean World, Volume I : Commercial Structures and Exchanges. Springer International Publishing, 2019, pp. 53-95.
Barry Cunliffe, By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean : The Birth of Eurasia, Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 415-450, “The Steppe Triumphant, 1150-1300.”
The Travels of Ibn Battuta. Berkeley ORIAS (10pp.) Travel MAP
Reference:
Angela Schottenhammer, editor. Early Global Interconnectivity Across the Indian Ocean World, Volume I : Commercial Structures and Exchanges. Springer International Publishing, 2019, pp. 121-224.
J. Eden, Slavery and Empire in Central Asia (Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.
Scott C. Levi, “Hindus beyond the Hindu Kush: Indians in the Central Asian Slave Trade“, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Nov., 2002, Third Series, Vol. 12, No. 3 (Nov., 2002), pp. 277-288.
Tansen Sen, “The Formation of Chinese Maritime Networks to Southern Asia, 1200-1450,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. 49, 4, 2006, 421-453.
Tansen Sen, “The Yuan Khanate and India: Cross-Cultural Diplomacy in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries,” Asia Major, 19, 1/2, 2006, 299-326.
William R. Day, An Analysis of Janet L. Abu-Lughod’s Before European Hegemony : The World System A. D. 1250-1350, Macat International Limited, 2017. (82pp)
George Lane, “The Ilkhanate: Mongol Rule in Medieval Western Asia, 1256-1335,” OREAH (33pp)
“From Mongols to Safavids,” Encyclopedia Iranica.
John Masson Smith. “Mongol and Nomadic Taxation.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol. 30, 1970, pp. 46–85.
Nicola Di Cosmo, Black Sea Emporia, Journal of the Economic and
Social History of the Orient, 53, 2010, 83-108.
The Cambridge History of Inner Asia: The Chinggisid Age. Edited by Nicola Di Cosmo, A. Frank, and P. Golden, Cambridge University Press, 2009.
The Mongol Empire: A Historical Encyclopedia, Edited by Timothy May, ABC-CLIO, 2017.
Historical Dictionary of the Mongol World Empire by Paul D. Buell and Francesca Fiaschetti. Rowman & Littlefield, 2018-04-06.
In the Service of the Khans: Elites in Transition in Mongol Eurasia, Edited by Michal Biran, Asiatische Studien, 71, 4, 2017, Editor’s Introduction, pp. 1051-1057 (Each chapter is a case study.)
Hosung Shim, “The Postal Roads of the Great Khans in Central Asia under the Mongol-Yuan Empire,” Journal of Song-Yuan Studies, 44, 2014, 405-469 (JSTOR).
Prajakti Kalra, The Silk Road and the Political Economy of the Mongol Empire, (Ebook; University of Toronto Press, 2016).
Suzanne Conklin Akbari and Amilcare Iannucci, Marco Polo and the Encounter of East and West (Ebook University of Toronto Press, 2016).
Michael Hope, “Bukhara under the Mongols,” (OREAH).
The Silk Road and the cities of the Golden Horde, G. A. Fedorov-Davydov and Jeannine Davis-Kimball. Zinat Press, Berkeley 2001.
Enerelt Enkhbold, The role of the ortoq in the Mongol Empire in forming business partnerships, Central Asian Survey, 38, 4, 2019, 531-547.
Thomas Conlon, In Little Need of Divine Intervention: Takezaki Suenaga’s Scrolls of the Mongol Invasions of Japan. East Asia Program, Cornell University 2001. (Bobst DS861.C66. 2001)
James Waterson, Defending Heaven: China’s Mongol Wars, 1209-1370. London: Frontline Books, 2013. Bobst DS731.M64.W38.2013
Bettine Birge, Marriage and the Law in the Age of Khubilai Khan: Cases from the Yuan Dianzhang. Harvard university Press, 2017. (Ebook) Chapter One, “Historical Context” (online PDF) 20pp.
David Farquhar,”Structure and Function of the Yuan Imperial Government,” in China Under Mongol Rule, Edited by John. D. Langlois, Princeton, 1981.pp.24-54.
Primary Sources: The Travels of Marco Polo (1907John Masefield Translation on the Internet Archive)
Ibn Battuta, Travels in Asia and Africa, 1325-1354, Fordham University Medieval Sourcebook, and Ibn Battuta “Travels” Translation by Samuel Lee (1829)
Video15 with slides: “Mongol Territoriality.” (56:30). (Slides only)
Assignment 5. One-page paper#5: Write a short synopsis of Five-Page Pager#2, DUE NEXT WEEK. Summarize the novelty and traditionalism of the Mongol Empire, using specific examples.
Individual Weeks in full syllabus: Week 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14