The Mongols

In chapter 12 we read about the Mongols, their pastoral and nomadic societies, but most importantly about their military vision.  What’s important to know about Mongols is how their “revolution of domestication” helped their people live in more “favored environments”.  This domestication helped them to have a very promising economic foundation. The Mongols nomad societies did not focus in having very elaborate structures, such as those of other empires; on the other hand, their focus on agriculture and animal herds.  

I feel that if it was not for the Mongols then the western European powers would not have been able to gain the momentum they did when they did.  They may still have at some point became as powerful as they did but it would have taken them a lot longer, probably hundreds of years later.

Something really interesting about the Mongols was their vision of women.  Compared to Islam, which I talked about earlier, Mongols had women in a higher status and had fewer restrictions. “[women] had a greater role in public life than their sisters in agricultural civilization” (p335), women also had to take care of their families and they did not have “negative connotations” like for example the Chinese had with their women. I am a woman and I see that as a positive characteristic of the Mongol society, I also believe women had more chance to do so because men were more focused on their military success.