Genghis Khan
Dan Snow's History Hit
History Hit
4.7 • 13.7K Ratings
🗓️ 8 August 2023
⏱️ 36 minutes
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Summary
Genghis Khan roughly translates to 'Universal Ruler', a fitting name for the most famous nomadic conqueror to have ever lived. He was born as Temüjin, outcast by his tribe as a young child and left to fend for his family in the wild. But the determined young man would go on to unite the Mongolian clans and through warfare, trade and diplomacy, carve out the largest contiguous land empire to have ever existed. So what did the world that he was born into look like? How did he unite the rival clans, and go on to dominate the 13th century world?
In the second episode of this two-part series on nomadic conquerors, Professor Kenneth W. Harl of Tulane University takes us through this remarkable story, and compares Genghis' life with that of Attila.
Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Dan Snow's History It, to listen to all of our episodes ad-free, get bonus |
| 0:05.5 | content and watch hundreds of history documentaries. Download the History It app or go to historyit.com |
| 0:11.5 | slash subscribe. And if you're an Apple listener, you can subscribe for new ad-free episodes |
| 0:16.5 | within the Apple app. |
| 0:18.4 | Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History It. At its height, the Mongol Empire of the |
| 0:26.4 | 13th and 14th centuries was the largest, contiguous land empire in history. The largest |
| 0:33.0 | empire, which is all connected up with each other, in history. It stretched from the Sea |
| 0:38.5 | of Japan, on the east of Eurasia, all the way to parts of eastern Europe, almost to the |
| 0:44.3 | gates of Vienna. It stretched from the Arctic, down to India and the Iranian plateau. |
| 0:52.2 | This empire was forged by a man we remember as Genghis Khan. We should probably refer to |
| 0:57.9 | him as Chinghis, which is marginally closer to the original pronunciation. Genghis or Chinghis, |
| 1:04.0 | it has connotations of toughness, righteousness, strength, and Khan means ruler. Another theory, |
| 1:12.2 | is it just means universal ruler. Under Genghis Khan, the Mongols are probably one of the most |
| 1:17.9 | formidable military forces that ever galloped across the surface of the earth. They moved so |
| 1:24.2 | fast they could fight out of the marching season when the snow was still on the ground. They |
| 1:30.0 | were brutally effective at terrifying their opponents into surrender. And then having |
| 1:33.2 | conquered a people, they were very good at analyzing their strengths and absorbing them |
| 1:38.2 | into their military machine. They were unpopular, as you might expect, among their enemies. |
| 1:43.2 | A 13th century European chronicler called the Mongols a detestable nation of Satan that |
| 1:48.4 | poured out like devils from hell. But I think the reality of the Mongol Empire was rather |
| 1:53.7 | different. Here to tell us all about the Mongols and Genghis Khan, in particular, is Dr. Ken |
| 2:01.1 | Harle. He's a professor of classical and Byzantine history at Tulane University in New Orleans, |
... |
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