The Eurasian Steppes Gave Us Atilla the Hun, Genghis Khan, Global Trade and Hybrid Camels

History Unplugged Podcast

History Unplugged

Society & Culture, History

4.2 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 5 September 2023

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The barbarian nomads of the Eurasian steppes have played a decisive role in world history, but their impact has gone largely unnoticed. These nomadic tribes have produced some of the world’s greatest conquerors: Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, among others. And their deeds still resonate today.

These nomads built long-lasting empires, facilitated the first global trade of the Silk Road and disseminated religions, technology, knowledge and goods of every description that enriched and changed the lives of so many across Europe, China and the Middle East. From a single region emerged a great many peoples – the Huns, the Mongols, the Magyars, the Turks, the Xiongnu, the Scythians, the Goths – all of whom went on to profoundly and irrevocably shape the modern world. But their legacy is also death. An estimated 100 million died in the Mongol conquests, include 90 percent of Iran’s population, which only recovered in the 20th century.

To discuss these legacies is Kenneth Harl, author of “Empires of the Steppes.” He draws on a lifetime of scholarship to vividly recreate the lives and world of these often-forgotten peoples from their beginnings to the early modern age.

This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/3101278/advertisement

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Skye here with another episode of the History Unplugged Podcast.
0:08.0	The Eurasian Step is a 5,000-mile-long region stretching from Hungary to Manchuria that incubated
0:13.1	some of the world's largest civilizations in greatest conquerors, including the Tull of
0:16.3	the Hun, Genghis Khan, and Tamerlain.
0:18.4	The civilizations that existed here were step-no-mads, and they were incredibly versatile.
0:22.6	Being able to live in frigid winters, scorching hot summers, all while being able to transport
0:27.0	nearly all their goods by horse and camel.
0:28.9	They built the Silk Road, the economic backbone of the ancient medieval worlds, which allowed
0:33.1	goods to travel from Europe to Japan.
0:35.2	Today's gist is Kenneth Harle, author of the book Empires of the Steps, but we're
0:38.8	going to look at 2,000 years of step-nomadic culture from their emergence in the Iron
0:42.8	Age, in about 500 BC, to their disappearance, around 1,500, when gunpowder created new forms
0:48.3	of warfare that rendered their methods of conquest obsolete.
0:51.0	We look at good and bad aspects of step-nomadic legacy, the good being kicking off the first
0:55.8	age of globalization in international trade, spreading ideas and religions across the
1:01.0	old world, the bad being the large-scale slaughter and destruction of cities and civilizations,
1:06.2	for example, 90% of Iran was killed in the 1200s and only regained its population in the
1:10.6	20th century.
1:11.6	Hope you enjoy this discussion with Kenneth Harle.
1:13.9	And one more thing before we get started with this episode, a quick break for work from
1:19.2	our sponsors.
1:24.8	The History of North America podcast is a sweeping historical saga of the United States,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from History Unplugged, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of History Unplugged and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.