Nomadic empires
Subtitle: from Mongolia to the Danube
By: Gerard Chaliand ; translated from the French by A.M. Berrett.
Contributors: Berrett, A. M.
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
Published: 2004
Place of publication: New Brunswick, U.S.A
Language: eng
Number of pages: 135
Subjects: Nomads -- Asia, Central -- History.; Asia, Central -- History.; Eurasia -- History.
Work titles: Empires nomades de la Mongolie au Danube.
Description: "Nomadic Empires sheds new light on 2,000 years of military history and geopolitics. The Mongol Empire of Genghis-Khan and his heirs, as is well known, was the greatest empire in world history. For 2,000 years, from the fifth century B.C. to the fifteenth century A.D., the steppe areas of Asia, from the borders of Manchuria to the Black Sea, were a "zone of turbulence," threatening settled peoples from China to Russia and Hungary, including Iran, India, the Byzantine Empire, and even Syria. It was a true world stage that was affected by these destructive nomads."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [125]-129) and index.
Table of contents: title: 1. Introduction. The impact of the nomads ; Nomads and settled peoples ; The nomadic model: the Scythians; title: 2. The military fronts of the Altaic nomads (fourth century B.C.-twelfth century A.D.). The Chinese front ; The Indo-Iranian front ; The Byzantine front ; The Russian front ; The exception of western Europe; title: 3. The apogee of the nomads: Mongols and Turkic-speakers (thirteenth-fifteenth centuries). The Mongols ; The Turkic-speakers ; The eyewitnesses; title: 4. The revenge of the sedentary peoples (sixteenth-nineteenth centuries). Russia after the Mongols ; China after the Mongols ; Epilogue; title: Appendices. Periodization of nomad waves ; Nomad empires of high Asia ; Sites of waves of invasions.