Internet Component: Unit 4 Activity

Designed by

Okan Caglayan

The Mongols

The Mongols were an obscure people who lived in the outer reaches of the Gobi Desert in what is now Outer Mongolia. They were a pastoral and tribal people that did not really seem to be of any consequence to neighboring peoples. The Mongols were in fact a group of disunified tribes that would gather regularly during annual migrations; although they elected chiefs over the tribes at these meetings, they never unified into a single people. Their religion focused on a sky-god that ruled over nature deities, similar to the Japanese native religion Shinto, and the gods communicated to them through shamans. All that would change however, under the leadership of a powerful and vigorous leader named Genghis Khan (Timuchin).

Activity # 1 Chapter 13

As you review Chapter 13, "Western Eurasia, 1200-1500," you’ll see that the Mongols created large, centrally controlled kingdoms throughout Eurasia (see The Mongol Empire and read each of the hyperlinks on the page). Yet, the Mongols were often as influenced by the people they governed as they influenced conquered peoples. To analyze whether this phenomenon was similar in Eastern Eurasia, read the essay at The Mongolian Empire: The Yuan. What kind of government did the Mongols create in China? What were its policies toward economy, religion, education, and foreign trade? Considering what you know about previous regimes in China, explain what was different and similar in the way the Yuan Empire governed. What factors of Chinese political culture allowed for such continuity?

Activity # 2 Scholar Voice

One of the best ways to introduce recent scholarship into the classroom is to invite modern scholars to pose and respond to key questions, and discuss different ways of thinking about issues of empire and colonialism. In this section of the tutorial, scholars participating in the Explorations of Empire seminar discuss key themes of their work. Some illuminate aspects of imperialism related to the modern world, while others specifically address the pre-modern Mongol Empire.

Go to the Scholar Voice in the Pre-modern imperialism tutorial: The Mongols website, and review David Morgan’s answers for the questions, and briefly describe one of them.

12/2/02

IDST2372