61 Quotes by Jack Weatherford

Most empires of conquest in history have imposed their own civilisation on the conquered... By comparison the Mongols trod lightly on the world they conquered.

At the end of the debate, unable to convert or kill one another, they concluded the way most Mongol celebrations concluded, with everyone simply too drunk to continue.

Khatun Temur, literally “Queen Iron,” and Khatun Baatar, “Queen Hero.

Get up early and go to bed late.

The Mongol army had accomplished in a mere two years what the European Crusaders from the West and the Seljuk Turks from the East had failed to do in two centuries of sustained effort. They had conquered the heart of the Arab world. No other non-Muslim troops would conquer Baghdad or Iraq again until the arrival of the American and British forces in 2003.

Despite the initial reliance of commerce on routes created through military conquest, it soon became obvious that whereas armies moved quickest by horse across land, massive quantities of goods moved best by water. Mongols expanded and lengthened the Grand Canal that already connected the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers to transport grain and other agricultural products farther and more efficiently into the northern districts.

Following the example of Genghis Khan, the early Mongol rulers clearly recognized that knowledge constituted their most potent weapon, and controlling the flow of information served as their organizing principle. Genghis.