Secret History of the Mongols (1252) trans. Christopher P. Atwood
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The fourth in our Journey to the East reading series exploring texts from the Middle East, India, China and Japan.
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The origin of Chinggis Khan: there was Grey Wolf born with a destiny from Heaven above. His wife was Fallow Doe. They came crossing the sea.
The oldest surviving text in a Mongolic language, this book recounts the life of the man we'd know as Genghis Khan, a culture hero of Mongolia with the slightly dubious reputation for being responsible for killing 11% of the world's population in his lifetime, and for having created one of the largest empires in history.
I'm really excited about this book - though the text itself is about 150 pages, Atwood's translation includes a hundred-page introduction and is loaded with footnotes and appendices. This is one for the history freaks! Scholarship aside, this book promises to be a lively and entertaining account of the world of horses, archery, horse archery, yurts and the endless steppe. Please request to join the WhatsApp ground for a digital copy - the translation is a Penguin Classic. As always, suggestions for future books go there too.