Jack Weatherford is The New York Times bestselling author of Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World, The Secret History of the Mongol Queens, and The History of Money, among other acclaimed books. A specialist in tribal peoples, he was for many years a professor of anthropology at Macalaster College in Minnesota and divides his time between the United States and Mongolia.
"The conquests of the Mongols were arguably the most important
event of the last millennium in Eurasia. Yet Genghis Khan has
remained an opaque and enigmatic figure, a symbol of cruelty and
little else. Jack Weatherford has peeled back the curtain and
revealed a complex man and thinker in this path-breaking work of
rousing history and scholarship."
— Robert D. Kaplan, author of The Revenge of
Geography and Eastward to Tartary
“Revisionist history on a grand scale, but one as scrupulously well
researched as such an intellectual overhaul needs to be…What is
most remarkable about this fine and fascinating book is
Weatherford’s central claim that the Great Khan’s ecumenism has as
its legacy the very same rigid separation of church and state that
underpins no less than the American idea itself. The United States
Constitution’s First Amendment is, at its root, an originally
Mongol notion…. Weatherford argues his case very well, and in doing
so offers further amplification of the notion that so many of the
West’s claimed achievements in fact have their true origins in the
East.”
— Simon Winchester, New York Times Book Review
“Genghis Khan, the Mongol warrior who conquered swaths of Central
and Eastern Asia in the early thirteenth century, is not commonly
considered a paragon of tolerance. But this account of the laws and
customs of his court presents a figure who not only believed in
freedom of religion but pioneered its implementation. Faced with
unifying an empire that encompassed numerous warring religions, the
Mongols crafted policies that, Weatherford argues, influenced the
architects of the U.S. Constitution…Analysis of Khan’s thought
bolsters the claim, and adds a welcome dimension to a misunderstood
figure.”
— The New Yorker
“It's an unexpected connection, that of Genghis Khan — one of the
bloodiest, most ruthless imperialists the world has ever seen — and
the concept that people, including and perhaps especially conquered
populations, should be allowed to practice the religion of their
choice. This idea, born of the wily Mongol's shrewd perception that
the gift of religious liberty could extend the life of his empire
far longer than enforced conversion, in turn influenced generations
of thinkers, including the American Founding Fathers and, in
particular, Thomas Jefferson.” — Chicago Tribune
“Few contemporary writers have Weatherford’s talent for making the
deep sweep of history seem vital and immediate.”
— Washington Post
"Weatherford tells the gripping story of how a man rose from
nothing to control almost all the known world. That the Mongol
conqueror Genghis Khan, the ultimate self-made man, was also the
founder of religious liberty is only one of many surprises in this
well-researched and well-written book. Through meticulous
scholarship, Jack Weatherford has found tangible echoes of the
Founding Fathers’ promotion of complete religious tolerance in the
thinking of Genghis Khan.”
— Andrew Roberts, author of Napoleon
“Genghis Khan is best remembered by Voltaire’s description: a
‘cruel tyrant King of Kings’, who butchered and brutalised his way
across the medieval world. But in this elegant, original and
scrupulously researched book, Jack Weatherford makes the case for a
Mongolian warlord as first mover behind the First Amendment
freedoms millions of Americans enjoy today. Bold, compelling and
tautly argued, this is another fine study of a subject Weatherford
knows better than anyone else writing today.”
— Dan Jones, author of The Plantagenets
“Jack Weatherford returns to Genghis Khan and offers a startling
conclusion: that the Western tradition of secularism in fact was
enhanced by the religious tolerance of the great Mongolian warlord.
An engaging, well-researched—and counter-intuitive—intellectual
odyssey.
— Victor Davis Hanson, Senior Fellow in Residence in Classics
and Military History at the Hoover Institution/Stanford University
and author of Carnage and Culture
“After consolidating two civilizations — and subjects from several
faiths — under his rule, Khan realized religious tolerance was
crucial to keeping his empire intact.” – The Editors of the New
York Times Book Review, paperback row
"An engrossing history that sheds further light on a figure the
West has long regarded as the ultimate barbarian."
-Booklist (starred review)
"Weatherford's study of 13th-century Mongolia reveals how Genghis
harnessed the power of religion to rule the largest empire the
world has ever known, and draws parallels to religious extremism
today."
—Publisher's Weekly, Top 10 History Titles
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