Genghis Khan and the Warriors of the Mongol Empire | Dan Carlin and Lex Fridman
Summary
TLDRThe transcript discusses the complex legacy of Genghis Khan, exploring whether he was a progressive leader or a destructive force. It delves into the concept of 'historical arsonist,' suggesting that figures like Khan may have been necessary to clear societal stagnation. The conversation also touches on the Mongols' reputation for religious tolerance and their nomadic warrior culture, which gave them a unique military advantage. The discussion questions the portrayal of the Mongol Empire as liberal, arguing that their actions may have been more about control than benevolence.
Takeaways
- 🔥 The debate over whether Genghis Khan should be considered a progressive or an evil destroyer is complex and depends on one's perspective.
- 🌊 Genghis Khan's legacy is often compared to a 'historical arsonist', someone who clears out the old to make way for the new, but this view is not universally accepted.
- 🏰 The Mongol Empire's policies, such as religious tolerance, were more about maintaining stability and control rather than being inherently progressive.
- 🏹 The Mongols' military success was rooted in their nomadic lifestyle and mastery of horse archery, which gave them a unique advantage over settled societies.
- 🌐 Genghis Khan's ability to unite various tribes into a confederacy was a key factor in the Mongol Empire's success, distinguishing them from previous nomadic groups.
- 👥 The Mongol Empire was not homogenous, incorporating many conquered tribes into their ranks, often using them as frontline forces in battles.
- 🎯 The Mongols' approach to religion was pragmatic, aiming to ensure the support of all gods for the Khan's rule, rather than promoting a specific belief system.
- 🏞️ The Mongol Empire's impact on the world was significant, but its portrayal as a force for good is often a retrospective justification rather than a contemporary view.
- 🛡️ The military tactics of the Mongols, including the use of their horse archers and the strategy of using conquered peoples as vanguard, were crucial to their conquests.
- 📚 The historical interpretation of Genghis Khan and the Mongols is complex and involves a blend of history and philosophy, with different historians presenting varied perspectives.
Q & A
What is the debate surrounding the pronunciation of Genghis Khan's name?
-The debate is whether it should be pronounced 'Genghis Khan' or 'Chinggis Khan', reflecting different spellings and pronunciations of his name.
What is the 'historical arsonist' sub-theme mentioned in the podcast?
-The 'historical arsonist' sub-theme refers to the idea that sometimes a figure or force must come in and clear out societal stagnation, much like a forest fire, to allow for renewal and progress.
How is Genghis Khan viewed in Mongolia and other parts of the world?
-Genghis Khan is often viewed positively in Mongolia and some other parts of the world, where he is seen as a unifying figure and a progressive leader for his time.
What are some of the positive attributes attributed to Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire?
-Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire are credited with religious toleration, a merit-based system, and creating a stable empire, which are seen by some as progressive for the time.
How does the concept of 'Mongol universality' relate to the empire's conquests?
-Mongol universality refers to the idea of conquering the world to bring stability, which can be seen as a justification for their conquests, though it's a perspective that might not align with the experiences of those conquered.
What is the argument against viewing the Mongol Empire as a 'liberal' empire?
-The argument is that while the Mongols may have appeared tolerant and progressive, their actions, such as taking people's daughters as concubines, show that their policies were more about control and stability rather than true liberalism.
How does the podcaster describe the Mongols' approach to religion within their empire?
-The podcaster describes the Mongols as being religiously tolerant, but this was more about maintaining stability and control over their diverse empire rather than a genuine concern for religious freedom.
What is the significance of the nomadic tradition in understanding the Mongols' military success?
-The nomadic tradition is significant because it provided the Mongols with a unique relationship with horses and a mastery of archery, which gave them a military advantage that was difficult for settled societies to replicate.
How does the podcaster compare the Mongols to other nomadic confederacies in history?
-The podcaster compares the Mongols to other nomadic confederacies like the Scythians, Sarmatians, Avars, and Huns, noting that what made the Mongols different was Genghis Khan's ability to unite them and maintain a stable empire.
What role did Genghis Khan play in the formation of the Mongol Empire according to the podcast?
-Genghis Khan played a crucial role in unifying the various tribes of the Mongols, creating a powerful confederacy that was able to conquer a vast empire and maintain control for several generations.
How does the podcaster view the portrayal of Genghis Khan and the Mongols by later historians?
-The podcaster suggests that later historians may have put a positive spin on the Mongols' actions, viewing them as progressive or necessary for societal renewal, which might not align with the Mongols' own motivations or the experiences of those they conquered.
Outlines
🌐 Genghis Khan: Historical Arsonist or Liberator?
The paragraph discusses the complex legacy of Genghis Khan, touching on the debate over whether he was a progressive figure or a destructive force. It introduces the concept of 'historical arsonist,' suggesting that some historians view figures like Khan as necessary catalysts for change, clearing away societal stagnation to allow for renewal. The speaker acknowledges the Mongol Empire's reputation for religious tolerance but also points out the potential for this to be a mechanism of control rather than a genuine moral stance. The paragraph also raises questions about the motivations behind the Mongol conquests, suggesting that the positive portrayal of Genghis Khan might be a retrospective justification rather than a reflection of his own intentions.
🏹 The Mongol Warriors: Masters of War
This paragraph delves into the military prowess of the Mongols, suggesting that their success was not based on a pre-existing ideology but emerged from their exceptional skill as warriors. The speaker compares the Mongols to other nomadic tribes throughout history, emphasizing their unique relationship with horses and their mastery of mounted warfare. The paragraph also discusses the Mongols' nomadic origins and how their military advantage was tied to their lifestyle rather than to a specific set of weapons or tactics. The speaker reflects on the eventual decline of the Mongols' military dominance with the advent of gunpowder and the rise of settled societies.
🐎 The Nomadic Legacy: Horsemanship and Military Strategy
The final paragraph focuses on the unique military strategy of the nomadic tribes, particularly the Mongols, who were renowned for their horsemanship and archery skills. The speaker describes how these tribes, from the Scythians to the Comanches, were able to maintain a significant military advantage due to their intimate connection with horses, which allowed them to shoot arrows while riding at full speed. This skill was so integral to their identity that they were likened to centaurs. The paragraph also touches on the strategic use of these tribes by settled societies, who would often hire them as mercenaries due to their unmatched abilities. The speaker concludes by emphasizing the role of leaders like Genghis Khan in uniting these tribes and the importance of preventing such confederations to maintain regional stability.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Genghis Khan
💡Historical arsonist
💡Religious toleration
💡Empire
💡Nomadic tradition
💡Eurasian Steppe
💡Horsemen and archery
💡Conqueror
💡Stagnation
💡Mongol universality
💡Ideology
Highlights
The debate over the pronunciation of Genghis Khan's name and the uncertainty surrounding it.
Genghis Khan's impact on human civilization and the fascination with his historical legacy.
The question of whether Genghis Khan was an evil man or a progressive figure, considering the context of his time.
The concept of 'historical arsonist' and its application to figures like Genghis Khan who reshaped societies through conquest.
The idea that some historical figures may be seen as providing a service to humanity by clearing out stagnation and corruption.
The portrayal of Genghis Khan as a positive figure due to his actions that led to the establishment of a new world order.
The argument that Genghis Khan's actions, such as religious toleration, were more about maintaining control than liberal ideology.
The蒙古帝国's approach to religion and how it was used as a tool for stability rather than a genuine expression of tolerance.
The critique of the 'liberal empire' narrative and the question of whether the Mongols' actions were truly progressive.
The analogy of shooting an arrow and painting a bullseye around it to discuss the retrospective justification of historical actions.
The emergence of the Mongol Empire and the importance of Genghis Khan's leadership in uniting various tribes.
The comparison of the Mongols to other nomadic warrior tribes, such as the Comanches, and their military prowess.
The unique human-animal relationship of the Eurasian steppe nomads and its impact on their military advantage.
The historical context of the Mongols as part of a long line of nomadic confederacies in the Eurasian steppe.
The role of diplomacy in keeping nomadic tribes separated to prevent the formation of powerful confederacies.
The significance of Genghis Khan in unifying the Mongols and maintaining their empire for several generations.
Transcripts
is it genghis khan or genghis khan
it's not genghis khan it's either
genghis khan or chingas khan
so let's go with the genghis khan the
only thing i'll be able to say with any
certain
last certain thing i'll say about it uh
it's like i don't know
gif versus jif i don't know i don't know
how
i don't know how it ever got started the
wrong way yeah
so first of all your episodes on uh
genghis khan
for many people are the favorite it's
fascinating to think about
events that had so much like in their
ripples had so much impact on
so much of human civilization in your
view
was he an evil man
this goes to our discussion of evil
another way to put it is i've read
he's much loved in much part in many
parts of the world like mongolia
and i've also read arguments that say
that
he was quite a progressive for the time
so where do you put him is he a
progressive or is he an evil destroyer
of
humans as i often say i'm not a
historian which is why
what i try to bring to the hardcore
history podcasts
are these sub themes so each show has
and they're not i try to kind of soft
pedal them so they're not always like
really right in front of your face
um in that episode the soft pedaling sub
theme had to do with what we uh referred
to as a historical arsonist
and it's because some historians have
taken the position
that sometimes and and most of this is
earlier so historians don't do this very
much anymore but these were the
wonderful questions i grew up with
that blend it's almost the intersection
between history and philosophy
and the idea was that sometimes
the world has become so overwhelmed with
bureaucracy
or corruption or just stagnation
that somebody has to come in or some
group of people or some force has to
come in
and do the equivalent of a forest fire
to clear out all the dead wood
so that the forest itself can be
rejuvenated and
and society can then move forward and
there's a lot of these periods where the
historians
of the past will portray these figures
who come in and do horrific
things as creating an almost service
for for mankind right uh creating the
foundations
for a new world that will be better than
the old one and it's a recurring theme
and so this was the sub
theme uh of the of the cons podcast
because otherwise you don't need me to
tell you the story of the mongols but
i'm going to bring up the
historical arsonist element um and but
this gets to how the khan has been
portrayed right
if you want to say oh yes he cleared out
the dead wood and made for a for
well then it's a positive thing if you
say my family was in the forest fire
that he set
you're not going to see it that way um
much of what
genghis khan is credited with on the
upside right
so things like religious toleration and
you'll say well he was uh
religiously the mongols were religious
uh religiously tolerant and so this
makes them almost like a liberal
reformer kind of thing
but this needs to be seen within the
context of
of their empire which was uh very much
like the roman viewpoint which is the
romans didn't care at a lot of time what
your local people worshipped
they wanted stability and if that kept
stability and kept you paying taxes and
didn't require the legionaries to come
in and and
then they didn't care right and and the
cons were the same way like they don't
care what you're practicing as long as
it doesn't disrupt their empire and
cause them trouble
but what i always like to point out is
yes but the khan could still come
in with his representatives to your town
decide your daughter was a beautiful
woman that they wanted in the khan's
concubine
and they would take them so how liberal
an empire is this right so
so many of the things that they get
credit for as though they're some kind
of nice guys
may in another way of looking at it just
be a simple mechanism of control
right a way to keep the empire stable
they're not doing it out of the goodness
of their heart they have decided that
this is the best
and i love because the mongols were
what we would call a pagan people now i
love the fact that they
and i think we call it i forgot the term
we used it had to do with like like they
were hedging their bets religiously
right
they didn't know which god was the right
one so as long as you're all praying for
the health of the khan we're maximizing
the chances that whoever the gods are
they get the message right
um so i think it's been portrayed as
something
like a liberal empire and it the idea of
mongol universality universality is is
more about
conquering the world and it's like
saying you know we're going to bring
stability to the world by conquering it
well what if that's hitler
right he could make the same case or
hitler wasn't really the world conqueror
like that because he wouldn't have been
he wouldn't have been trying to make it
equal for all peoples but my point being
that it kind of takes the positive moral
slant out of it if their motivation
wasn't
a positive moral slant to the motivation
and
and the mongols didn't see it that way
and i think the way that it's portrayed
is like
and i always like to use this this
analogy but it's like um
shooting an arrow and painting a
bullseye around it afterwards
right how how do we how do we justify
and make them look good in a way that
they themselves
probably and unless we don't have the
mongol point of view
per se i mean there's something called
the secret history of the mongols and
there's
things written down by mongolian
overlords through people like persian
and chinese scribes later we don't have
their point of view
but it sure doesn't look like this was
an attempt to create some wonderful
place where everybody was living a
better life than they were before
i i think that's that's later people uh
putting a nice rosy spin on it so but
there's an aspect to it
maybe you can correct me because i'm
projecting sort of my idea of what it
would take to
to uh to conquer so much land
is uh the ideology
is emergent so if i were to guess
the mongols started out as
exceptionally as warriors who valued
excellence in skill of killing and not
even killing but like the
the actual practice of war and it can
start out small
you can grow and grow and grow and then
in order to maintain the stability
of the things over which of the
conquered lands
you developed a set of ideas with which
you can like you said
establish control but it was emergent
and it seems like the core
first principle idea of the mongols
is just to be excellent warriors that
felt
that felt to me like the starting point
it wasn't some ideology
like with hitler and stalin with hitler
the there was an ideology that didn't
have anything to do with
with war underneath it it was more about
conquering it feels like
the mongols started out more um
organically i would say
it's emerg like this phenomenon started
emergently and they were just
like similar to the native americans
with like the comanches like the
different warrior tribes that joe rogan
is currently obsessed with
at the that what led me to look into it
more they they seem to just
start out just valuing the skill of
fighting whatever the tools of war they
had which were pretty primitive
but just to be the best warriors they
could possibly be make a science out of
it
is that is that crazy to think that
there was no ideology behind it in the
beginning
i'm gonna back up a second i'm reminded
of the line set about the romans that
they create a wasteland
and call it peace that is wow that but
but but there's a lot of conquerors like
that right um where
where uh you you will sit there and
listen historians forever have
it's it's the trait it's the famous
trade-offs of empire
and they'll say well look at the trade
that they facilitated and look at you
know the religion all those kinds of
things but they come
at the cost of all those peoples that
they conquered forcibly and and
and by force integrated into their
empire
the one thing we need to remember about
the mongols that makes them different
than say the romans
and this is complex stuff and way above
my pay grade but i'm fascinated with it
and it's more like the comanches that
you just brought up is that the mongols
are not a settled
society okay they are they are they come
from a nomadic tradition now several
generations later
when you have a kubila khan as as the
as the emperor of china it's it's
beginning to be a different thing right
and the mongols when their empire broke
up the ones that were
uh in settle the so-called settled
societies right iran places like that
they will become more like over time the
rulers of those places were
traditionally
and the mongols and say like the the
cognate of the golden horde which is
still in
in their traditional nomadic territories
will remain traditionally more mongol
but when you start talking about who the
mongols were
i try to to make a distinction they're
not
some really super special people
they're just the latest confederacy
in an area that saw nomadic
confederacies going back to the
beginning of recorded history
the scythians the sarmatians the avars
the huns the magyars i mean these are
all the nomadic you know the nomads of
the eurasian steppe were
huge huge players in the history of the
world until gunpowder
nullified their their traditional weapon
system which i've been fascinated with
because
their traditional weapon system is not
one you could copy
because you were talking about being the
greatest warriors you could be
every warrior society i've ever seen
values that
what this what the nomads had of the
eurasian step was this
relationship between human beings and
animals
that changed the equation it was how
they rode
horses and societies like the byzantines
which would form one flank of the step
and then all the way on the other side
you had china and below that you had
persia these societies would all attempt
to create mounted horsemen who used
archery
and they did a good job but they were
never the equals
of the nomads because those people were
literally raised in the saddle
they compared them to centaurs um the
comanches great example considered to be
the best
horse riding warriors in north america
uh the comanches i always loved watching
uh there's paintings george catlin
the famous uh um uh painter who painted
the comanches
uh illustrated it but the mongols and
the scythians
and scithians and the avars and all
these people did it too where they would
shoot from underneath the horse's neck
hiding behind the horse the whole way
you look at a picture of somebody doing
that and it's insane
this is what the byzantines couldn't do
and the chinese couldn't do
it was a different level of of
harnessing a human animal relationship
that gave them a military advantage
that could not be copied right it could
be emulated but they were never as good
right that's why they always hired these
people
they hired mercenaries from these areas
because they were incomparable
right it's the combination of people who
were shooting bows and arrows
from the time they were toddlers who
were riding from the time they were
who rode all the time i mean they were
the huns were bow-legged the romans said
because they were never
they ate slept everything in the saddle
that creates something that is difficult
to copy
and it gave them a military advantage uh
you know
i enjoy reading actually about when that
military advantage
ended so 17th and 18th century when the
chinese on one flank and the russians on
the other are beginning to use
firearms and stuff to break this
military
power of these of these various cons
the mongols were simply the most
dominating and most successful
of the confederacies but if you break it
down they really
formed the nucleus at the top of the
pyramid of the apex of the food chain
and a lot of the people that were known
as mongols were really
lots of other tribes non-mongolian
tribes that when the mongols conquer you
after they killed a lot of you they
incorporated you into their confederacy
um and often made you go first you know
you're gonna fight somebody we're gonna
make these people go out in front and
suck up all the arrows
before we go and finish the job so to me
and and i guess a fan of the mongols
would say that the difference
and what made the mongols different
wasn't the weapon system or the fighting
or the warriors or the armor or anything
it was genghis khan and if you go look
at the other
really dangerous from the outside
world's perspective dangerous
step nomadic confederacies from past
history was always when
some great leader emerged that could
unite the tribes and you see the same
thing in native american history two
degree two um
you had people like attila right
or uh there was one called two men you
go back in history and these people
make the history books because they
caused an enormous amount of trouble for
their settled neighbors
that normally i mean chinese byzantine
and persian
approaches to the step people were
always the same they would pick out
tribes to be friendly with they would
give them money gifts hire them
and they would use them against the
other tribes and generally
byzantine especially in chinese
diplomatic history was all about keeping
these tribes separated
don't let them form confederations of
large numbers of them
because then they're unstoppable attila
was a perfect example
the huns were another large the turks
another large confederacy of these
people and they were devastating when
they could unite so the diplomatic
policy was don't let them
that's what made the mongols different
is genghis khan united them and then
unlike most of the tribal confederacies
he was able they were able to hold it
together for a few generations
you
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