History of the Mongol Empire

Author: (French) René Grousset
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2005-07-01
Features: The author, René Grousset, formerly served as the director of the Senigal Museum in Paris. To the best of my knowledge, he has written four works on Mongolian history. In 1929, he published A History of the Far East, which is divided into five parts: two on China, one on India, one on Mongolia, and one on the Indochinese Peninsula. The section on Mongolia was translated into Chinese by Feng Chengjun and titled A Brief History of Mongolia (Commercial Press, Historical and Geographical Series, first edition July 1934). In 1938, he published The Empire of the Steppes. The History of the Mongol Empire I am translating now is one of the volumes in The World History edited by E. Carvenne, first published in 1941. In 1944, he also published The Conquerors of the World. Among his works on Mongolian history, this book is relatively late in publication. If compared with his earlier two works on the subject, it can be seen that the author has corrected many of his past errors or omissions. The purpose of this book, as the author himself states in the "Introduction," is to compare and cross-reference the main sources of Mongolian history (Chinese, Persian, and Mongolian). After reading this book, one realizes the significant contributions the author has made in this field of research, making it highly valuable for reference. In terms of narrative, Mongolian history has long been considered difficult to read, but the author has put considerable effort into making it more accessible, carefully verifying dates and locations. As for the conciseness of the writing and the vividness of the narrative, as the Soviet scholar Yakubovsky remarked on this book: "It has achieved literary success."