Quotes from Jack Weatherford

Genghis Khan had well-founded and unshakable faith in his daughters and the other women around him. "Whoever can keep a house in order," he said, "can keep a territory in order." As the military campaigns grew longer, the division of labor solidified into a division of command authority. At its heart, the dual-shaft system functioned quite simply. She ruled at home; he served abroad. Even

The royal Mongol women raced horses, commanded in war, presided as judges over criminal cases, ruled vast territories, and sometimes wrestled men in public sporting competitions. They arrogantly rejected the customs of civilized women of neighboring cultures, such as wearing the veil, binding their feet, or hiding in seclusion.

Khatun Temur, literally "Queen Iron," and Khatun Baatar, "Queen Hero.

Outlawing the sale or barter of women marked Genghis Khan's first important departure from tribal practices regarding marriage, and gradually through a series of such changes he transformed the social position of his daughters, and thereby of all women, within his burgeoning empire.

One of the first to reevaluate Genghis Khan was an unlikely candidate: peace advocate Jawaharlal Nehru, the father of Indian independence.

Although the army of Genghis Khan killed at an unprecedented rate and used death almost as a matter of policy and certainly as a calculated means of creating terror, they deviated from standard practices of the time in an important and surprising way. The Mongols did not torture, mutilate, or maim.

Although Genghis Khan recognized the superior leadership abilities of his daughters and left them strategically important parts of his empire, today we cannot even be certain how many daughters he had. In their lifetime they could not be ignored, but when they left the scene, history closed the door behind them and let the dust of centuries cover their tracks. Those Mongol queens were too unusual, too difficult to understand or explain. It seemed more convenient just to erase them. Around

When it came time to retire to his chamber for the night, the khan had his pick of beautiful young women, all of whom had been tested to make sure that they did not snore, have bad breath, or discharge any unpleasant body odors.

khan's mobile unit of doctors and pharmacists served him a tea made from orange peel, kudzu flowers, ginseng, sandalwood, and cardamom. Sipped on an empty stomach, the tea was guaranteed to overcome a hangover and make the khan fit for another day of hunting, eating, and drinking.

Genghis Khan recognized that warfare was not a sporting contest or a mere match between rivals; it was a total commitment of one people against another. Victory did not come to the one who played by the rules; it came to the one who made the rules and imposed them on his enemy.

Only a few details have survived from Temujin's earliest childhood, and they do not suggest that he was highly valued by his father. His father once accidentally left him behind when they moved to another camp.

Despite the initial reliance of commerce on routes created through military conquest, it soon became obvious that whereas armies moved quickest by horse across land, massive quantities of goods moved best by water. Mongols expanded and lengthened the Grand Canal that already connected the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers to transport grain and other agricultural products farther and more efficiently into the northern districts.

Geoffrey Chaucer, the first author in the English language, devoted the longest story in The Canterbury Tales to the Asian conqueror Genghis Khan of the Mongols.

Even in this high-tech age, the low-tech plant continues to be the key to nutrition and health.

Without the vision of a goal, a man cannot manage his own life, much less the lives of others," he

War for the nomadic people was a sort of production.

Genghis Khan recognized that warfare was not a sporting contest or a mere match between rivals; it was a total commitment of one people against another. Victory did not come to the one who played by the rules; it came to the one who made the rules and imposed them on his enemy. Triumph

images of the Madonna and the Christ Child carved in ivory and exported to Europe.

Terror, he realized, was best spread not by the acts of warriors, but by the pens of scribes and scholars.

They quickly discerned the advantages of utilizing columns of numbers or place numbers in the style of Arabic numerals, and they introduced the use of zero, negative numbers, and algebra in China.

on free commerce, open communication, shared knowledge, secular politics, religious coexistence, international law, and diplomatic immunity.

The Greeks who rhapsodized about democracy in their rhetoric rarely created democratic institutions. A few cities such as Athens occasionally attempted a system vaguely akin to democracy for a few years. These cities functioned as slave societies and were certainly not egalitarian or democratic in the Indian sense.

keeping with the laconic Mongol traditions, he warned his sons not to talk too much. Only say what needs to be said. A leader should demonstrate his thoughts and opinions through his actions, not through his words: "He can never be happy until his people are happy." He stressed to them the importance of vision, goals, and a plan. "Without the vision of a goal, a man cannot manage his own life, much less the lives of others

Most empires of conquest in history have imposed their own civilisation on the conquered... By comparison the Mongols trod lightly on the world they conquered.