| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 105.5

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 105.5 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Asia

Isenbike Togan. Flexibility and Limitation in Steppe Formations: The Kerait Khanate and Chinggis Khan. (The Ottoman Empire and its Heritage: Politics, Society and Economy, number 15.) New York: E. J. Brill. 1998. Pp. xxii, 192.

Were the rise of Chinggis Khan in Mongolia and the creation of the world's largest empire at the beginning of the thirteenth century the culmination of a long-term historical development in Central Eurasia or something completely new and different? Until well into Chinggis Khan's lifetime, the region was divided among rival nomadic confederations that had been fighting, allying, and betraying one another for generations. At his death, the Mongol Empire was centralized, autocratic, and ruled over much of Eurasia. 1

Isenbike Togan argues that the success of Chinggis Khan was a natural development in a drive for unification in Mongolia, and Central Eurasia in general, during the twelfth century. In particular, she argues that the empire's organization owes much to the heritage of the Kerait confederation in which Temüjin, the future Chinggis Khan, spent much of his political life. Indeed, Togan comes very close to arguing that it should have been the Kerait and not the Mongols who united the steppe. In this analysis, the Mongols do not represent a radical break from the traditions of older confederations. Rather Mongol unification is portrayed as an internal struggle in which under Chinggis Khan's rule "commoners" were favored and used to displace the "aristocrats" who had dominated the existing steppe confederations. Togan also attributes a large role to Muslim merchants, whom she sees as an important force behind unification in the furtherance of trade. . . .

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