Globalizing Imperium: Thirteenth‐Century Perspectives on the Mongols

Abstract

AbstractThis paper investigates thirteenth‐century perspectives on Mongol imperium from different parts of the world, by comparing Franciscan John of Plano Carpini's *History of the Mongols* and the anonymous *Secret History of the Mongols*, considered the authoritative history of the empire by an anonymous Mongol author close to the imperial family. In the thirteenth century, Mongol ascendency in the East facilitated direct farreaching trade, communication, and exchange between various parts of the world unparalleled before in human history. While globalization did not exist then in the same way that it does today, I term the reach of the Mongol imperium “global” in the sense that it enabled, on an unprecedented scale, the amazing circulation of people and exchange of ideas between different regions, cultures, and communities in the East and West. Yet at the same time that they made world order and transformed history, contemporary observers of the nomads from different civilizations characterized them as the Other. My paper investigates the characterization of the Mongols as the paradoxical embodiment of savagery and absolute power from perspectives in both the East and West in this global context. It suggests that the Mongols offered a model of absolute rule and imperial dominance that resonated with non‐nomadic observers and permutated from East to West in the global thirteenth century.