Should the mongols be a civilization?

well, first of all, every European, American, and "white" political entity (no insult or rascism here) owes their prosperity to the Mongols. without the Mongols, the Europeans would've never known that an Asia really existed, and without Marco Polo and the other Europeans trying to find way to Asia, they would've never discovered America, sailed around the world, and try to go on a quest for world domination. the Mongols also severely weakened the islamic, chinese, and indian empires, the threat that would've existed against European expansion.

whatmore, in China, Kublai Khan was a very humane ruler. he actually conquered a city without shedding any blood; more importantly, he built orphanages, homeless shelters, and free welfare for the poor and needy.

they may not have been much of a unique civilization, but surely, their amazing accomplishments, and the fact that they were pretty much the closest anyone has gotten to total world domination, shows that they should deserve a place in the game.

I generally agree with you for the most part. Although as a Chinese (maybe I have been brainwashed by our ancient historians:crazyeye: ), it's really hard to accept the claim Kublai Khan is a very humane ruler. You have to be a humane person when you are humane to almost everybody, not just some part of the people. The population of China has been cut down by half after Yuan dynasty. You know what half of Chinese population mean. I just think he's a bit more tamed & sophisticated in general.

One major reason people still believe they are just bunch of rar rar barbarians are how people get drilled about what means by a "civilized" group of people. They need to see some amazing, well-defined big buildings. Oh you have the Chichen Itza? You must be much more civilized than the barb Mongols. Who care about the Silk Road maintained by Mongols which definitely has more impact on the world history. Also, nomadic people whose culture were founded on animal-husbandry based economy were traditionally considered as inferior (e.g. vs the agriculture-based civ like Chinese). People assuming because they seldom have big well-built cities, they have little culture.

The culture powerhouse in ancient China also belittled a lot of their neighbours. I think we randomly pick a SE Asian country before 16th century it is quite likely more advanced and prosperous than..say Incan, Mayan, and the "American native". But people just keep using that " but they learn everything from China" excuse, which is not really true.
 
Nice post. I think it is brings up an interesting point on the perspective of history and how it is passed on to future generations. History is based upon facts but the literature built around those facts is susceptible to individual and cultural perception. History is not unbiased and its creation, interpretation and legacy are not beyond politics, ego and the myriad of other issues that affect these perceptions. Russian and Chinese politics had a very strong impact on the documentation of Mongolian history (i.e. much of it destroyed). The only measure of a civilization is not how much infrastructure it creates. It is true that Mongolian history does not leave a trove of monuments, buildings and visible infrastructure. This does not make them uncivilized. The remnants of Karakorum still exist and are being studied. It was the capital city of Chinggis Khan's empire. In addition to all of the points mentioned above it was one of the first civilizations to protect religious diversity. In the captial over 8 religions were practiced freely and there was never a single war over religion. That is more of an accomplishment of even some countries today. The point of all this. History is not a single source find. If you want to understand history then your search needs to be bit more broad and open minded. Mongolia was nomadic civilization and much of its history is probably lost, but they did contribute significantly (see everything above) and are without question a civilization.
 
I generally agree with you for the most part. Although as a Chinese (maybe I have been brainwashed by our ancient historians:crazyeye: ), it's really hard to accept the claim Kublai Khan is a very humane ruler. You have to be a humane person when you are humane to almost everybody, not just some part of the people. The population of China has been cut down by half after Yuan dynasty. You know what half of Chinese population mean. I just think he's a bit more tamed & sophisticated in general.

One major reason people still believe they are just bunch of rar rar barbarians are how people get drilled about what means by a "civilized" group of people. They need to see some amazing, well-defined big buildings. Oh you have the Chichen Itza? You must be much more civilized than the barb Mongols. Who care about the Silk Road maintained by Mongols which definitely has more impact on the world history. Also, nomadic people whose culture were founded on animal-husbandry based economy were traditionally considered as inferior (e.g. vs the agriculture-based civ like Chinese). People assuming because they seldom have big well-built cities, they have little culture.

The culture powerhouse in ancient China also belittled a lot of their neighbours. I think we randomly pick a SE Asian country before 16th century it is quite likely more advanced and prosperous than..say Incan, Mayan, and the "American native". But people just keep using that " but they learn everything from China" excuse, which is not really true.


i agree with you for the most part too. well, i do know that most ancient historians do have a bias, but sometimes its a true bias. like the historians on Genghis Khan - some said he was a good, enlightened, brilliant conqueror, others said he was a demon from hell. so, yea.

just a funny thing - i think you may know this, but Mongolia and China are currently fighting over what Genghis Khan is from - Mongolia or China. :lol:
 
I just have to say even if us Americans didn't contribute too much to HISTORY doesn't mean we aren't now (not talking bout the war)i mean fiberoptic networks, satilite tv, internet, among others. Also the native americans might not have been all that much tech wise but spiritually they where probally the most advanced both the north and south natives. Back to the original point America is reletively new lets take acomplishments and length of time they exsisted and im willing to bet we aren't doing too bad
 
i agree with you for the most part too. well, i do know that most ancient historians do have a bias, but sometimes its a true bias. like the historians on Genghis Khan - some said he was a good, enlightened, brilliant conqueror, others said he was a demon from hell. so, yea.

just a funny thing - i think you may know this, but Mongolia and China are currently fighting over what Genghis Khan is from - Mongolia or China. :lol:

Since the PRC took over China Chinese scholars have long suffered some sort of "bipolar syndrome". Some are fanatically nationalistic, while some of them have lost the minimal sense of national identity. The former group claims everything to be part of the Han-centered China. The latter plays the "we are the world" game, so Mongols or Mandarins did not invade China; it's part of the natural process where different races forged together (they consider the heroes fighting the Mongols were "against the natural course of history" and some of them actually don't think Japanese invasion was that bad...:sad: ). Ironically, these two extreme motives lead to the same destination - under the name of "China" anything can be claimed. Moderates have no market in China now. :cry:

But I also think some rising countries in Asia (not offence, including the Nam to some extent, but Korea and India are the most serious cases) are also getting more and more nationalism-loving and have been claiming a lot of things that did not belong to them. Koreans last year just had the gut to apply to the UN (or something like that) their ancestors invented dragon boat racing. I don't want to say who is bad, who is good, I think everybody is playing aggressor today.

When history and politics mix, history becomes a big farce.
 
When history and politics mix, history becomes a big farce.

well, you know, history is generally never that true. if you know what i mean. ;)
 
The mongols are not a the best civ. They did not start out with a city. They were a nomadic tribe. Then they took a whole bunch of citys over. That is barbarianism and not a civ. As i said earlyer the Huns took over large areas too. That does not mean they are a civ. They never built any citys. It is not that they should be dissmissed from disscution, but someone like the Summerians or Phenotians would be better.
 
The mongols are not a the best civ. They did not start out with a city. They were a nomadic tribe. Then they took a whole bunch of citys over. That is barbarianism and not a civ. As i said earlyer the Huns took over large areas too. That does not mean they are a civ. They never built any citys. It is not that they should be dissmissed from disscution, but someone like the Summerians or Phenotians would be better.

A civ whose economy primarily based on animal-husbandry in ancient time COULD NOT afford fixed, big cities. They were always looking for greener pastures to feed their sheeps and horses and had to be mobile. It doesn't mean they cannot have their culture, custom, religion (Nomadic tribes did have their religions), law and social organization, etc. that qualify them as legitimate civs.

If you get a job that requires you to travel all around the world on regular basis and never settle, does it mean you are a lesser person compared to some guys who go graduated/marry/buy house/happy forever, even you own a more competitive business than the home-happy guys?

Everything is about how things are defined by the majority. The borderline between a civ and barbarian is fuzzier than we can imagine. Treat them as an alternative form of civ you'll feel more "rationalized", like labeling herbals as "alternative medicine" and suddenly it's even better than modern medicine, and Mongols are certainly the most potent herbal stuff you can find in history.
 
The Mongols were largely pastoral, true, but they were also heavily invested in trade. When Chinese dynasties cut off trade to nomadic groups, they would resort to raiding or outright invasion to force re-opening of trade. Under Mongol rule, foreign merchants were relatively well-protected because the Mongols needed them.

There were some cities established by the Mongols - Khanbalik (established over the ruins of the Jurchen Jin capital of Zhongdu), Kazan (in present-day Tartarstan, Russia), and Karakorum, for example.
 
The mongols are not a the best civ. They did not start out with a city. They were a nomadic tribe. Then they took a whole bunch of citys over. That is barbarianism and not a civ. As i said earlyer the Huns took over large areas too. That does not mean they are a civ. They never built any citys. It is not that they should be dissmissed from disscution, but someone like the Summerians or Phenotians would be better.

So nomadic cultures can not be considered civilized? For the record they did build cities.

Keep in mind the Mongolian armies did not raze cities. Once a war was won the soldiers, academics, scientists and theologians were all given places in Mongolian society. There is no question about the brutality of their warfare tactics. They were brilliant combinations of tactics and pyschological warfare. However, Mongolians did more to intermix cultures and ideas than any other ancient civilization. Barbarianism implies a simple blood lust mentality with no regard for goal, purpose or structure. The Mongolian army may have been brutal, but it was very tactical and methodical. If you think its purpose was to mindless conquer and pillage then you are sadly mistaken and have not read most of the content of the previous posts.
 
Actually, not to be blunt, but the topic of this thread is in fact quite arrogant and insulting by itself (I am not saying the original poster) -- we are here to decide whether a race with a history longer than several American-European countries, multi-million people, a fair stretch of land even today and their own language SHOULD be a civilization or a bunch of barbarians??
 
A civ whose economy primarily based on animal-husbandry in ancient time COULD NOT afford fixed, big cities. They were always looking for greener pastures to feed their sheeps and horses and had to be mobile. It doesn't mean they cannot have their culture, custom, religion (Nomadic tribes did have their religions), law and social organization, etc. that qualify them as legitimate civs.

If you get a job that requires you to travel all around the world on regular basis and never settle, does it mean you are a lesser person compared to some guys who go graduated/marry/buy house/happy forever, even you own a more competitive business than the home-happy guys?

Everything is about how things are defined by the majority. The borderline between a civ and barbarian is fuzzier than we can imagine. Treat them as an alternative form of civ you'll feel more "rationalized", like labeling herbals as "alternative medicine" and suddenly it's even better than modern medicine, and Mongols are certainly the most potent herbal stuff you can find in history.

The dawn of civilization is when people formed sities, so therefore to me a nomadic tribe is not civilization

This is the definition of Civilization

a civilization is a complex society. Anthropologists distinguish civilizations, in which many people depend on agriculture for food and live in cities.

They were nomadic
 
It was more their lack of individual culture, science, government, and production that made me consider that they weren't really much of a civ. I have researched this, remember? Culture, religion, and science are all key to the structure of building a civilization. The mongols had none of these. I didn't quite mean they didn't contribute anything, I was saying they contributed little in the sense civilization revolves around. An empire can barely survive without culture, and is swiftly destroyed without science. They were very important, true, but to consider them a civilization is a little out of context. after kublai Khan's death the empire kind of split apart among the Mongolian generals and Kublai's sons. I don't think the mongols were really a civ in the sense that the game revolves around. I think they should stay a scenario like in warlords, all due respect to their accomplishments and leaders.
 
So nomadic cultures can not be considered civilized? For the record they did build cities.

Keep in mind the Mongolian armies did not raze cities. Once a war was won the soldiers, academics, scientists and theologians were all given places in Mongolian society. There is no question about the brutality of their warfare tactics. They were brilliant combinations of tactics and pyschological warfare. However, Mongolians did more to intermix cultures and ideas than any other ancient civilization. Barbarianism implies a simple blood lust mentality with no regard for goal, purpose or structure. The Mongolian army may have been brutal, but it was very tactical and methodical. If you think its purpose was to mindless conquer and pillage then you are sadly mistaken and have not read most of the content of the previous posts.

I said they were not a civilization not that they were not civilized on an individual basis.

Pluse, i never said they were a barbarian civ. I just said the boundrie between civ and barbarian civ is veary hazy and it should not be dismissed that the are not exactly a civ in my opinion. No they did not pillege, but that is true of many barbarians.

The barbarian is technically a social parasite on civilization, who depends on settlements as a source of slaves, surpluses and portable luxuries: booty, loot and plunder. In this limited sense, without cities there can be no barbarians.

That is the difinition of barbarian. They looted cities when they got there. They did not raze the city, but that is not what is needed to become a barbarian. The Mongols relied on the cities they captured
 
Sure sure.

Now on to some more productive activities....

Some Praetorians perhaps.
 
The idea that the Mongols should not be a civ is absurd, and there's no other way to say it. The Mongols, aside from their military accomplishments and political legacy, managed to bring together the various cultures of Eurasia, from the Persians and Europeans to the Indians and the Chinese, together in order to share knowledge. As for their inability to found a city, they did.

Besides, what other civ could represent Central Asia?
 
whatmore, in China, Kublai Khan was a very humane ruler. he actually conquered a city without shedding any blood; more importantly, he built orphanages, homeless shelters, and free welfare for the poor and needy.
As a chinese who is very familiar about his own nation's history, your description about this man may seems more like a joke. The peak of chinese feudal dynasty-Song was suddenly ended and the whole chinese population dropped by about 60% during that time. Under this man's so called humane rule, chinese nation is "reclassed" as the lowest species which u can refer to Hitler's Jew policy. I even doubt u mistake the history of Song by that of Yuan. So make sure before u issued anything with so much confidence.
 
It was more their lack of individual culture, science, government, and production that made me consider that they weren't really much of a civ. I have researched this, remember? Culture, religion, and science are all key to the structure of building a civilization. The mongols had none of these. I didn't quite mean they didn't contribute anything, I was saying they contributed little in the sense civilization revolves around. An empire can barely survive without culture, and is swiftly destroyed without science. They were very important, true, but to consider them a civilization is a little out of context. after kublai Khan's death the empire kind of split apart among the Mongolian generals and Kublai's sons. I don't think the mongols were really a civ in the sense that the game revolves around. I think they should stay a scenario like in warlords, all due respect to their accomplishments and leaders.

I'm a little late here, and others have summed up a lot of my points, but I haven't seen this mentioned yet. You say here that religion is key to building a civilization, and that Mongols had no religion. Well, Mongolia was the first empire of its size to allow freedom of religion. Rather than being persecuted for their beliefs, people could worship as they chose, whoever they chose. Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, they were all equals within the Mongolian empire. While there's isolated examples of religious freedom in earlier civilizations, it was never done to the scale that the Mongols did. When you look at the USA, the UK, and other major western nations now, Mongolia was very far ahead of the curve in how it handled religion.

You say the Mongols had no culture. They had a very distinct culture. They were a nomadic people, masters of the horse. They could travel farther and faster than any other people. This was the hallmark of their empire. The postal system was mentioned. They set up lit watch towers to warn of bandits and military threats. A rider with important information would gallop from tower to tower, stopping at each one to drop off his weary horse and pick up a new one, to go farther in a day than anyone could dream of. Is that not a cultural achievement? Just because it's not a book, a song, or a work of art doesn't mean it shows a lack of culture. The spreading of trade and their means of communication were examples of Mongol culture shining through. Can you count that as a Wonder in the game? Not really. But that doesn't mean it's not valid, or important.

You say the Mongols had no science. They didn't need much. They had their skills with the horse, of course. But again, they were adaptable. That which they needed, they borrowed from their enemies. Chinese siege engines, Korean boats. Does it make things less valid if they use the inventions of others? Only one person can actually be the inventor of something, after all. Does current Western warfare show a lack of science, because the Chinese invented gunpowder? Of course not. While the Chinese invented it, it took western armies to actually craft it into a semi-efficient weapon, and brilliant military minds like Oda Nobunaga to get the most out of it with shrewd tactics. If having science and inventing things yourself was truly important, than these 'primitive' Mongols should never have conquered anything. But obviously, the Mongol inventions in the military field were enough for them to get rolling, and from there they were open-minded enough to borrow what they needed to thrive.

The weakness of the Mongol civilization was none of the above. It was simply their population. Spread a million Mongolian people out across the vast empire they conquered. How are they going to govern that for an extended period of time? Eventually the intermingling weakened the Mongolian bloodlines and diluted their power over the areas, and they all wound up devolving back into independant states. The empire started by Genghis Khan still lasted far, far longer than that of Alexander, and brought about more meaningful impact to the world at large (sorry, I don't count thirty cities named 'Alexandria' as impact). It sparked the Age of Exploration, and offered very modern, liberal ideas that in many cases didn't resurface for hundreds of years. It's unfortunate that in the writing of this paper you talk about, that you failed to actually delve into what the Mongols did. It's equally unfortunate that your teacher seemed ignorant enough to give you a good mark for such incomplete work. If you got a bad mark for this paper, you wouldn't be bragging about it, would you?
 
As a chinese who is very familiar about his own nation's history, your description about this man may seems more like a joke. The peak of chinese feudal dynasty-Song was suddenly ended and the whole chinese population dropped by about 60% during that time. Under this man's so called humane rule, chinese nation is "reclassed" as the lowest species which u can refer to Hitler's Jew policy. I even doubt u mistake the history of Song by that of Yuan. So make sure before u issued anything with so much confidence.

Even that area is still a matter of debate. That the Mongols massacred people is a known fact (the Mongols themselves encouraged the spread of news of mass slaughters). However, the de-population of China was also perhaps largely influenced by the spread of the bubonic plague. Population decline during the Yuan period can perhaps be attributed to census miscounts due to a combination of frequent movement (people fleeing war-torn regions or economic troubles), wars with the Mongols (and their response to rebellions), and the bubonic plague.

That the Chinese were classed lower than other groups (beneath Europeans, beneath Arabs and Persians, beneath Central Asians and Tibetans) was more due to the level of resistance they put up in response to the Mongol invasions; people didn't think of "racial" identities at that time. It was nothing like Hitler's policy of "racial supremacy." Also, quite a number of Chinese did serve the Mongols at the time of the invasions and the Yuan dynasty. Chinese scientists and seige engineers were responsible for developing advanced cannon weaponry and grenades (those "thunder bombs" found in a Mongol shipwreck off the coast of Japan) for the Mongol army.

That being said, I do agree that saying "Kublai Khan was humane" is quite a stretch. He was a brilliant leader, but he's still a conqueror. ;)
 
The Mongols were definitely a fully-qualified civilisation. It's a far better choice than the HRE as far as I'm concerned...

(Sorry, couldn't resist :p)

The Mongols just barbs with a leader? I disagree. Ok, so maybe initially they are no more than nomadic bandits, but then they were unified under Genghis Khan, and everything changes. They developed a government, written script and code of law, and of course there's the little matter of almost conquering the entire known world within 25 years of unification.

Genghis Khan didn't contribute anything to history? I don't think so. His conquests alone are bad enough to earn him a place among the greatest men who ever lived. This and his Yassa law code and their lax attitudes towards religious differences enabled trading along the Silk Road again, which leads to exchange of ideas between East and West and everyone in between. Scientific advances were made, while the Black Death was spread by Mongol armies, from Burma to China to Russia to Egypt and to Europe.

As for wholesale slaughter, rape and pillage, well, every "civilisation" does that. From Sumer to Greece to Rome, China, India, Europe, to modern societies, civilisations have had barbaric characteristics as well.

Anyway, point is, had the Mongols never unified under Genghis Khan, world history would be VERY different.
 
Top Bottom