Monday, November 6, 2017

Genghis Khan was a Swell Guy

Genghis Khan and the Quest for God: How the World's Greatest Conqueror Gave Us Religious FreedomGenghis Khan and the Quest for God: How the World's Greatest Conqueror Gave Us Religious Freedom by Jack Weatherford
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Genghis Khan was a baaad man...if you were a shitty ruler who oppressed your people and lived fat off the sweat of those less fortunate.

Jack Weatherford knows his subject inside and out. He's written numerous books on the Mongols and the khan in particular. He did an excellent job in helping me garner a better understanding of perhaps the greatest ruler of all time.

Genghis Khan and the Quest for God: How the World's Greatest Conqueror Gave Us Religious Freedom succeeds in portraying Genghis Khan as a man to be admired for his ability to gracefully accept the religious beliefs of our cultures and nations when he had absolutely no need to. In fact, it would seem to behoove him to squash the beliefs of all who came under his power, if for no other reason than to have uniformity of belief under his sway entirely.

Instead, this man had the wisdom and foresight to allow the people he subjugated to retain their believes, whatever they may be. That did away with the necessity of fighting a secondary religious war with highly fanatical partisans.

As I was flying through these pages I was remained of a modern day parallel that may help you understand the kind of ruler Genghis Khan was. Think Khaleesi from Game of Thrones. Both are warlike and brutally slaughtered many, but both brought about freedom for the previously oppressed. Yes, I'm drawing on fantasy fiction for an analogy, but hey, the legendary stories that make up Genghis Khan's life seem like they have to be the stuff of some master writer's wild imagination.

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