The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World

Marie Favereau's The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World aims to provide a new history of the Golden Horde by providing an overview of its political history, its place in the wider Eurasian trade system, its societal development, and its eventual dissolution. The author achieves an ostensible goal of conveying the cosmopolitan character of the Horde and its historical legacy. The book's scope is so vast that it is not always clear if it is a study on the Mongol Empire approached from the perspective of the Horde, or vice versa.The work displays a broader approach than has traditionally been seen in historiography of the Mongol Empire's northwestern region; earlier monographs like Charles Halperin's Russia and the Golden Horde (1987) emphasized the Rus's experience of Rus-Mongol relations. Favereau emphasizes the nomadic people of the Golden Horde and their interests. Thus the cities, trade, and crafts of the Golden Horde take special place here. Her goal could be analogized as an effort to reclaim the word horde itself, which has negative connotations in English (generally associated with unruly, tribal forces: a barbarian horde) when it is of course derived from the Turkic-Mongolian orda/ordo, meaning an army, a palace, an encampment of a prince—in other words, sites of administration, economic exchange, and royal splendor.The author makes good use of nonchronicle sources; we see the use of letters, Turkic sources based on Golden Horde oral histories, archaeological data (for instance, findings from the Horde's capital at Sarai), and numismatic evidence to build a fuller picture than that to which many readers might be accustomed. There are ample maps and images of archaeological items (glazed tiles, pottery, and jewelry) which are a welcome departure from images of weaponry exclusively for showcasing the Golden Horde's material culture. Some of these images, however, are unfortunately misrepresented. An illustrated bowl from early thirteenth-century Iran held in the David Collection is identified as “showing a Mongol couple” (101). Yet its design and figures are clearly in the distinctive mina'i-ware style of Kashan (dating to the late Seljuq/Khwarezmian period)—a ceramic tradition that ended with the Mongol conquest of Iran.The first chapter (26–62) provides an overview of Mongolian nomadism in the steppes and the rise of Chinggis Khan. Favereau does a fine job of placing Chinggis's rise to power and his institutions within the context of earlier nomadic states and societies in Mongolia. Yet the absence of references to the period of Khitan-Liao Dynasty dominance in eastern Mongolia (ca. 900s–1115) omits a rather looming influence on the foundation of the early Mongol state. The second chapter (63–94) deals with Chinggis Khan's sons’ division of his empire and the Jochid-led conquest of the western steppes. The Great Western Campaign of Batu is discussed in detail, but the analysis of the Mongol withdrawal from Hungary in 1242 (89–92) neglects recent scholarship and is a curious amalgamation of contradicting theories. The third chapter (95–137) nicely covers the early years of the Golden Horde lands when still part of the Mongol Empire, while the fourth chapter (138–63) looks at the Golden Horde in the 1260s civil wars and its relations with the Mamluk Sultanate. The author's claim here that “Hülegü departed eastward [from Syria in 1259] to take part in the election of the next great khan” (144) is disprovable; he never traveled farther east than the Mughan Steppe of Azerbaijan.The remaining chapters deal with the postdissolution Horde. The fifth chapter (164–205) on Golden Horde independence under Möngke-Temür Khan leads to a sixth chapter (206–46) on the height of the Horde's strength and economic might in the early fourteenth century. The author's frequent references to “the Mongol Exchange” of people, wealth, and ideas seems to mirror Timothy May's already long-standing notion of “the Chinggis Exchange.” The seventh (247–73) and eighth (274–98) chapters deal with the dissolution of the Golden Horde, during which it suffered from ecological disasters, political turmoil, the Black Death, and Timur's invasions. Favereau frames political chaos in somewhat Panglossian terms as “transformation” (297–98). A particularly sanguine assessment paints the Mongol expulsion from China in 1368 as a “strategic retreat” (258–59).Regarding the book's strengths, it is at its best in descriptive flourishes like Berke's meeting with Mamluk emissaries (138–39)—vivid episodes drawn from lesser-known or untranslated primary sources. Accessible and clear, it seems aimed at general readers. The book works well in an undergraduate classroom as an assigned text to teach Mongol Empire history at large. This is in part because of its vast chronological scope. The use of Mongolian-language terminology (with a useful glossary in the end materials [311–13]) reflects the latest trends in the field and might be an improvement on the use of broad, general terms like tribe that appear readily in Western literature but miss the nuance and intention of the Mongolian terms. On matters of transliteration, there of course will be no agreement when it comes to Mongolian names, but the author's insistence on “Sübötei” instead of Subutai or Sübe'edei is distracting (40).Favereau's book shows a clear homage to Jack Weatherford's Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World (2004) both structurally (e.g., the endnotes) and in its inclination to focus on the positives of the empire. Even the subtitle (How the Mongols Changed the World) is strongly reminiscent of Weatherford, and like him, Favereau directs readers’ attention to a transformative force on Eurasia that ushered in a new age. This contribution will be useful for those wishing for an accessible overview of the Golden Horde that challenges persistent notions regarding Central Asia's nomads.

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