Culture and Conquest in Mongol EurasiaIn the thirteenth century, the Mongols created a vast transcontinental empire that functioned as a cultural 'clearing house' for the Old World. Under Mongol auspices various commodities, ideologies and technologies were disseminated across Eurasia. The focus of this path-breaking study is the extensive exchanges between Iran and China. The Mongol rulers of these two ancient civilizations 'shared' the cultural resources of their realms with one another. The result was a lively traffic in specialist personnel and scholarly literature between East and West. These exchanges ranged from cartography to printing, from agriculture to astronomy. The book concludes by asking why the Mongols made such heavy use of sedentary scholars and specialists in the elaboration of their court culture and why they initiated so many exchanges across Eurasia. This is a work of great erudition which crosses new scholarly boundaries in its analysis of communication and culture in the Mongol empire. |
Contents
Before the Mongols | 8 |
Formation of the Ilqans 12511265 | 17 |
Grand Qans and Ilqans 12651295 | 24 |
Continuity and change under Ghazan 12951304 | 31 |
Sultāns and Grand Qans 13041335 | 35 |
Economic ties | 41 |
Overview of the relationship | 51 |
Marco Polo and Polo | 59 |
Agriculture | 115 |
Cuisine | 127 |
Medicine | 141 |
Astronomy | 161 |
Printing | 176 |
Models and methods | 189 |
Agency | 193 |
Filtering | 203 |
Qubilai and Bolad Aqa | 63 |
Rashīd alDīn and Pūlād chīnksānk | 72 |
Historiography | 83 |
Geography and cartography | 103 |
Summation | 210 |
212 | |
238 | |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Abaqa Abū agricultural Aḥmad Arabic Arghun Asia astronomers Āthār va Aḥyā Bar Hebraeus Bolad calendar cartography century Ch'eng Chaghadai Chin China and Iran Chinggis Qan Christian Collected Chronicles cuisine cultural dynasty early East Eastern embassy emperor envoys Eurasia exchange geographical Ghazan Golden Horde Grand Qan History HJAS Hui-hui Hülegü Hülegüids Il-qan Imperial Library Directorate Iran Isā Islamic Jamal Jochids Juvayni/Boyle Juvayni/Qazvīnī later Laufer maps Marco Polo medicine Medieval military Ming Möngke Mongol Empire Mongolian courts Mongolian Empire Muslim Needham Nestorian nomadic noted observatory Ögödei Öljeitü Paul Pelliot Pelliot Persian text physicians Po-lo political printing qaghan Qan's Qāshānī/Hambly Qubilai Rachewiltz Rashid al-Din Rashid/Alizade Rashid/Boyle Rashid/Jahn Rashid/Karīmī reign rulers scholars sect sedentary SH/Cleaves Sino-Iranica Sung T'ang Temür territories throne tion tradition trans translation Turkic Uighur University Press West Asian Western Yin-shan cheng-yao Yuan court Yuan Dynasty Yuan shih
Popular passages
Page xi - JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN ORIENTAL SOCIETY JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY...
Page 218 - Yellow River Sources under Emperor Qubilai in 1281," in G. Gnoli and L. Lanciotti (eds.), Orientalia losephi Tucci Memoriae Dicata, vol.
Page ix - I am grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities, which awarded me a Fellowship for College Teachers, under whose auspices I did the initial research and writing of this article. Betty Goldstein, "UE Drive on Wage, Job Discrimination Wins Cheers from Women Members,