Genghis: Lords of the Bow

Book Review with Spoilers! Beware!

I just finished reading Genghis: Lords of the Bow by Conn Iggulden. It's a historical fiction novel, part of his Conqueror series on the life of Genghis Khan. I've listened to both books in audiobook form. The first book, Birth of an Empire had a better narrator.

This book starts after Genghis unifies the tribes and defeats the Tartars. This is the conquest and defeat of the Chinese empires.

Mongol life is an illustration of survival of the fittest. There is a constant emphasis on standing up to harsh conditions or any adversary. They learn to use the bow from a very young age and ride horses with a skill that your average cowboy could not approach. The ability to accurately shoot arrows from the back of a horse with precision is the key to their striking power. The sword skills and resulting violence are peppered through the story.

While the novel is fiction, and we certainly have no dialog of what was said, or even a record of what was done on a day to day basis, we do know that the broad outline of Iggulden's book is correct. Genghis was illiterate, but he dictated his story, which was written down and copied. No versions survived in the native Mongol language, but Chinese translations survived and still available. I've done some online research to see if Iggulden's story holds true to what we know about Genghis Kahn, and so far it seems to be perfect. Iggulden mentioned that he had read the translated autobiography.

The third book in the series is out, but I haven't picked it up yet. This is where he starts to go west. We all remember the stories of Genghis Khan from history class where he invaded and defeated all the land right up to Europe, and then stopped. You never hear about the earlier part of the story, where he defeats the Chinese, nor do you hear about the origin and youth of the conqueror.

I was looking forward to seeing the many surprises that the part of the story that includes his drive into the Middle East and toward Europe. I thought I was more familiar with this story, but instead of finishing his book and doing research to compare the story to the history, this time I got online and read the history first.

Genghis Kahn and his Mongol "horde" were totally brutal. The histories talk about the scope of his conquests and the tactics he used, but they also tend to catalog his atrocities. He was famous for being able to quickly transport his army into an area and deploy for battle instantly, but he was also a master of intelligence, deception, and terror. He rarely went on a conquest without sending out extensive spies to determine the lay of the land and the local politics. He used fake retreats all the time, which drew his enemy out of protected positions where they could be annihilated by the more mobile Mongol horse archers. He would usually allow some people in a sacked city to escape into the next place he was headed, so that the traumatized survivors would spread fear in the next target city. He would also use massive groups of captives pushed out in front of the main body as a buffer. The defenders would use up all their bow and crossbow ammunition killing their own people before the Mongols would even get within range.

Each time they won, they would kill most of the population, except artisans, craftsmen, engineers, or young men of military age that were not yet in their enemy's army. Sometimes he would stack the heads of the people in huge heaps outside of the cities he sacked.

His son took Hungary and Poland, and had plans to go all the way through Europe to the Atlantic, if it had not been for the fact that he died and the remaining Mongol tribes did not work together again.

I highly recommend the book and look forward to reading the next in the series. I would warn people that it tends to make violence seem normal, or at least justifiable. It's a strange way of thinking to be exposed to.