Thread by @Noahpinion

1/Time for another thread by Noah Smith, Amateur Wikipedia Historian!

Today's thread is about parallels between the Mongol Empire and the European colonial empires.

2/There were basically two times in history when the people of one small region of the world conquered most of the rest of the world.

We all know about the most recent instance, in which European countries - Britain, Russia, Spain, France, etc. - conquered most of the world.

3/But this was actually the second time this happened! About 300 years prior to the European conquests, a small group of horse-riding nomads from Central Asia conquered most of Eurasia, including all the richest, most populous, and most powerful civilizations of the day!

4/With modern borders (i.e. including sparsely populated territory), the Mongol conquests would look even more vast. And if tributary states and successor states like Mughal India are included, it would be even more titanic.

5/Both the Europeans and the Mongols relies on three big advantages for their conquests.

The first was a mode of transportation that made them more mobile than the people they conquered. For Europeans, this was oceangoing ships. For Mongols, this was huge herds of horses.

6/The second advantage was superior weaponry.

The Europeans had great artillery (and, later, machine guns). The Mongols had recurved bows that could shoot better than anyone else's bows. They also had grenades and other explosive devices, and excellent siege technologies.

7/And the third advantage was superior military organization, borne from centuries of civil wars.

The Europeans had highly disciplined well-organized armies. The Mongols' organization, for their day, was even more impressive.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_mi…

8/Like the Europeans, the Mongols exploded out of relative obscurity, and in a short space of time crushed all opposition and dominated the world. Only a few places (Japan, Indonesia, Vietnam and Egypt) managed to hold off their armies, and usually with the help of oceans.

9/But like the Europeans, the Mongols dominated the world for only a short space of time. Almost as soon as it reached its zenith, the Mongol Empire started falling apart due to civil wars.

1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toluid_Ci…

2. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berke%E2%…

10/Civil wars dramatically weakened the Mongol Empire and broke it up into several smaller empires that often spent their energy fighting each other.

Meanwhile, the much more populous civilizations they had conquered kept rebelling until they threw off Mongol rule.

11/From the start of the Mongol conquests (1206) to the Mongols' loss of China (1368) was only 162 years. After that, loosely Mongol-affiliated successor states like Tamerlane's empire or the Golden Horde kept cropping up for 1 or 2 more centuries.

12/Vaguely Mongol-inspired states like Mughal India, (really stretching here) the Qing Dynasty, or (really really stretching here) the Ottoman Empire persisted for much longer, carrying on a few Mongol traditions and ideas down through the centuries.

13/The Mongol conquests brought the world closer together, spreading ideas, trade, and technology. They probably started the gunpowder age. And it's partly because of the Mongols that the Europeans began their own wave of exploration and conquest.

14/Now, however, the Mongol Empire - that unstoppable, universally feared killing machine that remade the world - is a distant memory, and Mongolia is a tiny, sparsely populated country mostly known for natural resource exports and pretty scenery.

15/So when you think about European colonialism, think of the Mongols.

They came, they saw, they conquered, they deeply changed the world, and then after a little while they went back to herding yaks.

16/Europe dominated the world for a bit (and the Western Hemisphere and parts of coastal Asia for a longer while).

But now European empires are gone, and Europe, while still wealthy, is a peaceful little peninsula with a small and shrinking population.

17/Today is a bit like the 1400s. The European conquerors have gone away, but much of the world still lives in the psychological shadow of those conquests.

In the 1400s, the Next Big Thing was Europe, but no one knew that yet. They were still recovering from the Mongols.

18/I think there's a great chance that in the centuries to come, India and Africa - denigrated as hopeless backwaters in the early days of the European conquests - will become home to the world's most powerful civilizations.

19/Will there ever be another wave of global conquest? I hope not. Maybe the world economy has moved on, so that future domination will be of the peaceful cultural variety instead of genocide and enslavement.

But in any case, Europe's glory, like the Mongols', is done.

(end)

In addition to Wikipedia and caffeine, this rather speculative thread was influenced by the following sources:

1. amazon.com/Genghis-Khan-C…

2. amazon.com/Genghis-Khan-C…

3. amazon.com/Mongol-Empire-…

4. amazon.com/Lost-Enlighten…

5. amazon.com/Tamerlane-Conq…

6. dancarlin.com/product/hardco…

Oops! The first of those should have been this one: amazon.com/Genghis-Khan-M…