# Talk:Pax Mongolica

I must heavily contest the changes the last user, Lao Wai, made to this page. I find it very biased in the very deliberate efforts to portray Pax Mongolica as a modern scholastic fantasy, a nonexistant revisionist history, by cramming this article with words and phrases like "invented by," "alleged," "sometimes claimed," "little evidence," "less evidence," etc. The conclusion of his non-NPOV arguments: it is more a "theoritical concept" than a practical reality. First of all, although Lao Wai is claiming he's making the article more historical, all he as actually done is just attack the credibility of this historical theory without adding any substantial historical facts. Secondly, although he claims in his profile that he likes adding sources to articles to add to their legitimacy, he makes all these claims against the Pax Mongolica viewpoint without adding any sources to back up his claims at all - he provides no sources to back up his absurd claims that no Islamic traders crossed the Silk Route during the time of the Mongols (Huh?) and that there is no evidence that the Mongols made the silk route more safe or more effecient. Why are these claims absurd? That brings me to my third point: Lao Wai made these biased changes without even bothering to read the one link that this page lead to, which is a very balanced article by a Professor at UW who, while acknowledging the desctructive extent of the Mongol expansion, also points out systems and evidence of the Silk Route, and overall production across the Empire, flourishing after Mongolian conquest. He even goes so much to quote primary documents, where Marco Polo, who travelled the route himself, says "The road you travel from Tana [Azov] to Cathay is perfectly safe, whether by day or by night, according to what the merchants say who have used it.." Very much contrary to what Lao Wai has added.

All of the info on this page is pure and unsourced conjencture. Pax Mongolica? "It was said"? - by whom, the Mongols?
This article does not acknowledge the real price a which this alleged Pax came. It's unsourced and it's more than a bit biased. It's a bad article, therefore. 24.80.109.19 03:00, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Where there are no historical facts it is hard to provide them.  Can you name an Islamic trader that crossed the Silk Route?  Notice that Islamic traders did before the Mongols.  Are you claiming that more did after the Mongols (although I deny the existence of the Silk Route as well you might be pleased to hear).  There simply is no evidence that the Mongols made the route safer.  Look at Marco Polo.  Read carefully.  I suspect I did read that link.  What is your point?  Marco Polo does not make that claim.  Francesco Balducchi Pegolotti does.  Pegolotti never travelled that route and is reporting hearsay.  And, by the way, it takes some imaginative reconstruction to translate his words so that they refer to the Silk Route at all. Lao Wai 17:57, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

The cut piece is
It is sometimes claimed that the "Silk Road," which connected trade centers across Asia and Europe, was made possible by the Mongol control of this territory. There is little evidence of Western or Islamic traders crossing the Mongol Empire although some religious and diplomatic figures were able to do so. There is less evidence that the Mongols even tried to make the route safer for traders. The phrase refers more to a theoretical concept than practical reality.
It is sometimes claimed that this was so.  But there is in fact little evidence of Western of Muslim traders.  The majority of people who did were not merchants (Rubrick, Marco Polo etc).  There is precisely no evidence that the Mongols tried to make the route safer.  It is more a theoretical concept than a real one.  What is objectionable about that? Lao Wai 18:57, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
@Lao Wai: My textbook tells me that when Ibn Battuta traveled to China in 1345, he did so along well-established routes of Arab merchants. It also quotes him writing in his book: "In all Chinese provinces, there is a town for the Mohammedans [Muslims], and in this they reside. They also have cells, colleges and mosques, and are made much of by the Kings of China."
Perhaps it is not definite evidence, but I think that shows reason to believe that there are Muslim merchants in China. Please correct me if I am interpreting you wrong. Wikignometry (talk) 03:58, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Early draft review notes:

Consider adding more links to the article; per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links) and Wikipedia:Build the web, create links to relevant articles.[?]
This article has no or few images. Please see if there are any free use images that fall under the Wikipedia:Image use policy and fit under one of the Wikipedia:Image copyright tags that can be uploaded. To upload images on Wikipedia, go to Special:Upload; to upload non-fair use images on the Wikimedia Commons, go to commons:special:upload.[?]
If there is not a free use image in the top right corner of the article, please try to find and include one.[?]
Watch for redundancies that make the article too wordy instead of being crisp and concise. (You may wish to try Tony1's redundancy exercises.)
Vague terms of size often are unnecessary and redundant -  “some”, “a variety/number/majority of”, “several”, “a few”, “many”, “any”, and “all”. For example, “All pigs are pink, so we thought of a number of ways to turn them green.”
As done in WP:FOOTNOTE, footnotes usually are located right after a punctuation mark (as recommended by the CMS, but not mandatory), such that there is no space in between. For example, the sun is larger than the moon [2]. is usually written as the sun is larger than the moon.[2][?]
Please ensure that the article has gone through a thorough copyediting so that it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work. See also User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a.[?]
Current ref 15 is missing a page number
You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk  22:10, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

The topic of this article is the Pax Mongolica. The history of the Polo family and the decline of the Mongol Empire are already covered in other articles, and don't need to be repeated here. I'm going to remove all material that isn't directly related to the topic. If you think that any of the removed material is not covered in those articles where it belongs, feel free to add it there. --Latebird (talk) 19:42, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I already commented on the irrelevance of the Polo story above. The decline of Mongol Empire is more relevant, as it is a partial explanation of the decline of Pax Mongolica. What I'd like to see are sections explaining why the Pax Mongolica came into existence (already begun in the "Foundations" section) and why it disappeared (and what replaced it). The latter section should in fact contain some of this information, as it is relevant to the article (but decline of Pax Mongolica should not be confused with decline of the Mongol Empire). PS. That said, for my course, improvements to Mongol_Empire#Fall can be considered for extra credit. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk  20:06, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
The decline of the Empire and the decline of the Pax Mongolica are of course related, but not the same thing. It would be interesting to learn which events in the decline of the Empire had specific(!) consequences for the Pax. Also possibly how the split into the four khanates may or may not have changed the situation. The text I removed, however, didn't relate to the Pax Mongolica at all. --Latebird (talk) 15:27, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
I agree with the reasons for removal. The next Decline will hopefully be more Pax Mongolica centered. Gxlarson (talk) 16:20, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

This review is transcluded from Talk:Pax Mongolica/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: Jackyd101 (talk) 00:26, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Hi there, I've provided a review against the Wikipedia:good article criteria below. I understand that you are not all fully Wikipedia experienced, so I'll do my best to explain things as clearly as possible without resorting to jargon. Also please be aware that although I have a reasonable degree of historical knowledge I am not a specialist on the Mongol Empire and thus will not be able to identify any minor factual errors in what you have written (hopefully your teacher is covering this aspect of the process). My role is to ensure that there are no glaring problems, that the prose and formatting are up to standard and that the article has been properly referenced and researched. 
I have reviewed this article against the Wikipedia:good article criteria and although I am not quite prepared to pass the article for GA immediately, I don't think there is a long way to go. I have listed below the principle problems which prevent this article from achieving GA status. The article now has seven days to address these issues, and should the contributors disagree with my comments then please indicate below why you disagree and suggest a solution, compromise or explanation. Further time will be granted if a concerted effort is being made to address the problems, and as long as somebody is genuinely trying to deal with the issues raised then I will not fail the article. I am aware that my standards are quite high, but I feel that an article deserves as thorough a review as possible when applying for GA and that a tough review process here is an important stepping stone to future FAC attempts. Please do not take offence at anything I have said, nothing is meant personally and maliciously and if anyone feels aggrieved then please notify me at once and I will attempt to clarify the comments in question. Finally, should anyone disagree with my review or eventual decision then please take the article to WP:GAR to allow a wider selection of editors to comment on the issues discussed here. Well done on the work so far.--Jackyd101 (talk) 00:26, 17 November 2009 (UTC)


### Issues preventing promotion
It is reasonably well written.
a (prose):  b (MoS): 
"stabilizing effects of the conquest of the Mongol Empire" - I think you mean "conquests" as the ME is the subject, not the object of sentence.
done.--Seanmac33 (talk) 05:39, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
"followed the Mongol's flurry of conquests." - two problems here, firstly it should be "flurry of Mongol conquests" to scan properly and secondly I not sure flurry is the best word for the process of conquest.
done.--Seanmac33 (talk) 05:39, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
"Genghis Khan's Mongol tribe, thus diversifying the societal balance of the tribe." - repetition of tribe.
done.--Seanmac33 (talk) 05:39, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
"into a new global system" - its not really global, more continental.
done. --Seanmac33 (talk) 19:20, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
"competing and rivaling tribute gatherers" - "and rivaling" is used in the wrong context here, and is unnecessary anyway, I suggest cutting it.
done.--Seanmac33 (talk) 05:39, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
"accounted for the booming Mediterranean-Mongol trade, it was also Italian traders.[10] During the Pax Mongolica," I'm not comfortable with the way this sentence is constructed, perhaps "accounted for the booming Mediterranean-Mongol trade: during the Pax Mongolica," would work better, moving the citation to the end of the paragraph.
This sentence was a remnant of a passage that was deleted a while ago. I removed this sentence because it didn't fit well with the rest of the text. --Gxlarson (talk) 18:45, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
"to the Europeans" - cut "the"
done.--Seanmac33 (talk) 05:39, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
"Europeans sent silver, fine cloth, horses, linen, among other goods" - change "among" to "and"
done.--Seanmac33 (talk) 05:39, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
"His brothers Chagatai Khan and Tolui further extended his network as well as his nephew Batu Khan." - They didn't (I hope) extend the nephew, so it should read "His brothers Chagatai Khan and Tolui and his nephew Batu Khan further extended this network.
done--Seanmac33 (talk) 05:39, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
You have removed the nephew bit, which makes it sound like Batu was a brother -which is it?--Jackyd101 (talk) 11:08, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
done. Gxlarson (talk) 19:14, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
"has even noted" - no need for "even" here (its not that surprising)
done.--Seanmac33 (talk) 05:39, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
"effectively govern their vast empire" - "govern their vast empire effectively" makes more sense here.
done.--Seanmac33 (talk) 05:39, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
"thought of as a financial bigot" - what does this mean?
done. --Seanmac33 (talk) 19:33, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
"Nawruz's power was pushed overboard when he assassinated General Ghazan" - overboard what? was he on a ship? I'm not sure what is meant here - did he become more or less powerful?
done. --Seanmac33 (talk) 19:33, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
"This aided in the power of Nawruz" is poor English, perhaps you mean "This contributed to the growing power of Nawruz".--Jackyd101 (talk) 12:37, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
done --Gxlarson (talk) 00:11, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
"As the culture was changing, many ideas and rumors were created. Some people thought that the Chinese rulers were planning to kill Chinese children and perform sexual rituals on them. This caused a mass xenophobia. Acting from isolation, China cut herself off from the rest of the world trade system." - I'm confused, who thought that the Chinese rulers were killing Chinese babies? When Chinacut herself off, was that the ethnic Chinese, the Mongol rulers or both? This sentance needs to be heavily rewritten.
has this been addressed properly? Gxlarson (talk) 19:47, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
"many ideas and rumors [poor English] were created. Some people [who?] thought that their Mongol masters were planning to kill Chinese children and perform sexual rituals on them. This caused a mass xenophobia [firstly, xenophonbia is not a noun, secondly, in what form?]. Acting from isolation [isolation is not a verb], China [who, Chinese people or rulers?] cut herself off from the rest of the world trade system" - still many problems, see notes.--Jackyd101 (talk) 12:37, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
I have rewritten much of this passage. Please see if it is better. --Gxlarson (talk) 00:29, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
"and the Chinese culture was at a standstill." - unclear, what does this mean?
how's this  -- Gxlarson (talk) 20:49, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
I've done some heavy tidying on the section, and added a  tag.--Jackyd101 (talk) 12:37, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
A citation has been added. --Gxlarson (talk) 00:31, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
"During the early years of the Ming Dynasty trade decline can clearly be seen." - well, no it can't beacuse it happened a long time ago. You need to be more precise in this kind of writing, i.e. "During the early years of the Ming Dynasty trade [with who?] declined."
done. Gxlarson (talk) 19:47, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
"many once-economic powerhouses" - you mean "many former economic powerhouses" or "many once-strong economic powerhouses"
done. Gxlarson (talk) 19:47, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
"European powers such as Portugal and Spain to emerge hegemonic in the world trade system." - although I know what it means, and I am usually against any such "dumbing down", I suggest that this sentance is simplified for the general reader. (This one is not essential)
addressed. Gxlarson (talk) 19:47, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (references):  b (citations to reliable sources):  c (OR): 
There were two points where I'd like to see references added. I have marked these with  tags.
done Gxlarson (talk) 20:32, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
An issue here, and I'm afraid it is something of a complex one for new editors. You have cited a number of pages in various books more than once. When this happens, to avoid confusion and reduce the space the references take up a system is used that merges all references to the same place into a single reference at the bottom (see one of my recent articles Battle of the Nile for an example). What you do, is to add the code <ref name="name"> to the first use of that citation instead of the usual <ref>. Then change where it says "name" to a simple code for that particular reference (e.g. Michael Prawdin. The Mongol Empire: Its rise and legacy. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2006. Print. p.350. could have the code "MP350"). Once this is done, go to every occassion when the identical reference appears and change it to <ref name="name"/> (e.g. <ref name="MP350"/>). This will merge all identical references into one reference at the bottom of the page, making it easier to follow and saving space on the article. See Wikipedia:Citing sources#Footnote system for more details, although I know that page can be quite intimidating.
done (I think I did this right...) Gxlarson (talk) 20:32, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Good work, although you missed one (Weatherford, p. 28). Also make sure that you are consistent in the formatting, i.e I don't mind if it is written as p.28 or p. 28 (with a space), as long as all sources are consistent.--Jackyd101 (talk) 01:52, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects):  b (focused): 
"It was said that a naked woman carrying a sack of gold" - by who? name them in the text and put quote marks around it if it is a directly transliterated quote.
done (I think). (That line was not written by us. But I changed the quotation to something that was commonly said about the Pax Mongolica. Both works cited provide this quotation, but they do not say who it was by; they say that it was "commonly said that '...'") Gxlarson (talk) 20:32, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
Can you give a very brief summary of the major Mongol conquests, with dates in the second paragraph of "Foundations". This does not need to be long or complicated, just enough to give a reader unfamiliar with the expansion of the Empire a quick idea of how far it grew and how fast.
This has to be properly sourced before it is ready. You also have to link all the empires, battles and people mentioned and remove the last sentence - it doesn't make sense where it is.--Jackyd101 (talk) 20:41, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Just had another thought, sorry. Can you explain to me (on this review page initially) when the term Pax Mongolica was coined? It says in the lead that it was created as a counterpart to Pax Romana (which makes sense), but was it a construct created at the time, in later histories or in recent years (i.e. 20th century)? If answers can be found to this question then maybe it can be added to the article later, but for now I am just curious.--Jackyd101 (talk) 01:49, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
I am curious about this as well: I have never read anything about the actual coining of the term (i.e. who first used/presented the term, when...). I don't think it was coined when Pax Romana was coined by Gibbon. The earliest use of the term I have encountered is in Michael Prawdin's The Mongol Empire, and he uses Pax Tatarica instead of Mongolica. His bibliography cites works from the 19th and early 20th centuries, but many are in foreign languages. It is my opinion that the term is either a 20th or 19th century phenomena. Gxlarson (talk) 05:46, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
That is interesting, thanks. Since there is no source it will have to stay out of the article for now, but I appreciate you summarising the main points.--Jackyd101 (talk) 11:08, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
It would certainly be great to find sources describing origins of the term "Pax Mongolica". According to GBooks, there is one and only one use of this term in the 19th century: [1], same for "Pax Tatarica" [2] (please remember that GBooks is not yet complete). Then long noting till 1930s ([3]), and from then on, the term grows in popularity: [4], [5].  Google Scholar records the first instances of the term being used for 1940s: [6].  --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk  18:52, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
a (fair representation):  b (all significant views): 
It is stable.

It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.
a (tagged and captioned):  b (lack of images does not in itself exclude GA):  c (non-free images have fair use rationales): 
Overall:
a Pass/Fail: 

You will be pleased to know that I now think this article is ready to pass GA. Please note that this source is unlikely to pass Wikipedia's bar for reliable sources, but I consider this a secondary point at this stage and will not delay the article's promotion for it. When it can be replaced with something more reliable then please do so. 
I also note that this article does not seem to be suffering any copyright violations as some of the others are - certainly in regard to web-based sources at least. If anyone has copied directly from a book then please let me know at once - this is plagarism and copyright violation, two things that Wikipedia takes very seriously indeed and any such instance will have to be removed as soon as possible. I don't think this is a problem with this article, but if it has happened and I have missed it then please admit it so that it can be dealt with. 
On a brighter note, this is a well-written and well-researched article about a slightly obscure topic, but I think it does a very good job and your polite and speedy responses were much appreciated. Regards, and good luck with your course.--Jackyd101 (talk) 23:03, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Needs to summarize the decline section. Few others comments: more categories are needed (something related to the Mongol Empire, certainly); decline section could use a picture. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk  20:38, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Hello all, impeccable work on the article so far, Kudos all round.
I would however give a few pointers on how to correctly CITE and how to use <ref name= > and the use of citation templates.
The most common ref you are going to use for this article is {{cite book}} reading through the template pages should give you a very good idea of how to use them. You don't have to fill out all the information on every cite. however the more information the merrier. title= is the only field that is compulsory for {{cite book}}.
So using Globalization in World History as an example you would fill it out like this:
<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hopkins |first1= A.G.|authorlink1= A.G._Hopkins |last2= |first2= |editor1-first= |editor1-last= |editor1-link= |others= |title=Globilization in World History|trans_title= |url= |format= |accessdate= |edition= |series= |volume= |date= |year=2003|month= |origyear= |publisher=Norton|location=[[New York City]] |language= |isbn=0393979423|oclc= |doi= |id= |page= |pages= |trans_chapter= |chapter= |chapterurl= |quote= |ref= |bibcode= |laysummary= |laydate= |separator= |postscript= |lastauthoramp=}}</ref>
As you can see this has left rather a large amount of fields unfilled, that's okay, in fact we can get rid of them, leaving us with this:
<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hopkins |first1= A.G.|authorlink1= A.G._Hopkins|title=Globilization in World History|year=2003|publisher=Norton|location=[[New York City]]|isbn=0393979423}}</ref>

Now, obviously, you are using the book multiple times through the article so rather than cutting an pasting each and every time I'm going to show you how to use <ref name= > so what we are going to do is give the reference a name, we'll call it "hopkins", but you can all it anything "Globalization", "global" or even "asghd" or "iu43gh", ANYTHING, but to make it easy to remember we'll just stick with "hopkins" (it is cAsE SenSItiVE) so make sure you stick with either upper- or lower-case. So you simply put in <ref name= > the first time that you use the ref instead of <ref> and then every time you want to use that ref you simply put in <ref name=hopkins/> So now every time that you want to reference Globalization in World History all you need to do is put in <ref name=hopkins/>.
Now you want to quote an individual page, but you don't want to have to cut and paste and modify the cite each time you ref a page, so (as odd as this may sound) ignore what I just told you. Well, not entirely. we'll still use <ref name= > so when we want to quote page three multiple times we'll call our new ref "hop3" and when we quote page 21 we'll call that "hop21", but again it can be anything so now we'll fill the article full of this; <ref name=hop3>Hopkins 2003, page 3</ref> and this; <ref name=hop21>Hopkins 2003, page 21</ref>, then whenever you want to ref page three you simply put in <ref name=hop3/> and to ref page 21 use <ref name=hop21/>
Then we need to split the references section at the bottom in two: ==Notes== and ==References== in ==Notes== we'll stick the {{reflist}} template, and since it is a particularly large amount of references will split it into 4 columns by writing it like this: {{reflist|4}} this will automatically list all the <ref>'s throughout the article and sort them into 4 even columns for us.
Under the ==References== We'll list each of the books like this: {{cite book |last1=Hopkins |first1= A.G.|authorlink1= A.G._Hopkins|title=Globilization in World History|year=2003|publisher=Norton|location=[[New York City]]|isbn=0393979423}}. That way when people see "Hopkins 2003, Page 3" listed under ==Notes== they'll know to look for it under ==References== for Hopkins name.
If you've done it all properly it should look like below.


#### Notes
#### References
Hopkins, A.G. (2003). Globilization in World History. New York City: Norton. ISBN 0393979423.
You may also want to check out the various other citation templates and use those in the article.Sanguis Sanies (talk) 17:19, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

While Pax Mongolica had socioeconomic importance, those projects cannot include "everything". Each period or era had a socioeconomic importance, but we cannot include them all in those projects. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me 21:52, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

The article is very well written, but contains some factual flaws. I think the main problem is that the Mongols sometimes just robbed other countries, and haven't established a political system there. For example, Hungary was broken in 1241, but after a year, the Mongols mainly left the country, which they ruled, but never governed. So to say that "the Mongolian empire stretched from Shanhaiguan in the east to Budapest in the west at its height" is simply misinformation. Mongols governed a very big area, and they often robbed the neighboring lands, but they chose not to govern them.
What do you think?
145.236.146.16 (talk) 23:58, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

The map labeled 1206 only shows the red (early) holdings.  Below the full size version other colors are given for the later expansions, but they are not on any version (that I can see) of the map itself. Shannock9 (talk) 10:46, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

"At its height, the Mongolian empire stretched from Shanhaiguan in the east to Budapest in the west" Budapest is a city name adopted in 1873 after the administrative unification of Pest, Óbuda and Újbuda. There was NO Budapest in the mid 13th century. Kill that anachronism.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.36.175.136 (talk) 12:32, 2 December 2019 (UTC) 

This first paragraph of this section is poorly written.  Most of the information is generic and vague.  You can't boil down "Old world" and new world, and you can't say that the old world consists of isolated imperial systems.  That's generic view of someone who doesn't anything about any of the states that exists on or near the Silk Road.  All these states traded, engaged in diplomacy, fought wars with one another, etc. Take a look at Byzantine history and their interactions in Sogdiana for example.  
That's what happen when you generically quote a sociologist as your basis for knowledge of the silk road.  She took a word she understood in 20th century context ("imperial") and applied it to stuff in the past.  It's nonsense. 66.215.188.141 (talk) 04:07, 26 August 2025 (UTC)