Atwood has produced an excellent volume of primary source translations hitherto inaccessible to many scholars and most students. This volume is ideal for classroom use. With clear and functional maps and other ancillary materials to accompany the lucid translations, Atwood offers instructors everything they could ask for in a classroom textbook. This work can easily accompany other primary sources (Western and/or Islamic) to provide a holistic view of the Mongol Empire. The translations are clear and accompanied by, but not burdened with, informative footnotes so one can use the text as a standalone volume or as an accompanying text. Undoubtedly, this volume of translated Chinese sources will become a standard text that all classes on the Mongols and researchers will put to excellent use. Timothy May, University of North Georgia
Our modern fascination with the Mongol empire only increases with each passing year. One global myth even claims that Chinggis Khan's DNA can be found among most of the races of the world todaya story of genetic seeding that surely testifies to the obsessive awe with which the rulers of the largest empire in the history of the world are still held. The Rise of the Mongols: Five Chinese Sources , is thus a timely, important, and welcome addition to the limited sources on the Mongols currently available to us in English translation. Unlike the Yuanshi the Chinese history of the Mongol dynasty that is retroactively writtenChristopher Atwood's and Lynn Struve's five Chinese sources recount the important early days of the Mongol ascension to power through contemporary and even eyewitness accounts situated in both southern and northern China. Whether you're teaching Marco Polo, or The Secret History of the Mongols , or courses in early globalism, you'll find this invaluable collection of newly-translated Chinese sources indispensable. Geraldine Heng, author of The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages , and Founder and Director of the Global Middle Ages Project
Christopher Atwood, one of the world's leading Mongolists and an outstanding historian and linguist, has made some of the earliest historical sources on the emerging Mongol empire accessible at last to non-Sinophone readers. The publication of these highly readable translations from classical Chinese, finely illustrated with maps and images, is a landmark event for scholars and teachers of the history of the Mongol conquests. Shao-yun Yang, Denison University
For scholars of the medieval West used to seeing the Mongols through the eyes of Matthew Paris, William of Rubruck, or Marco Polo, Atwood's The Rise of the Mongols is a revelation. In five Chinese source texts dating from the time of Chinggis Khan to that of his grandson Qubilai, we see the emergence of the Mongols and their conquest of northern China not as a sudden fait accompli but as a complex process of military exploit and cultural negotiation. Ideal for the World History classroom, the volume's extended introduction offers an invaluable guide to Chinese and Central Asian history and culture. Sharon Kinoshita, University of California Santa Cruz
In addition to a highly readable English translation and their authoritative and up-to-date commentary, the editors have contributed the identification of new readings on the basis of a wide range of manuscripts and modern printings. No less valuable are the introductory sections on traditions associated with Chinese state-building and on the conventions of Chinese historical writing. In sum, Atwood and Struve have rendered a signal service to scholarship on the history of the thirteenth-century Mongols. Scholars who (like this reviewer) lack a knowledge of Chinese will warmly welcome this collection. Peter Jackson, Keele University, in The Medieval Review
