A review by jonjas
Genghis Khan: His Conquests, His Empire, His Legacy by Frank McLynn

3.0

Way too dense, meandering, and at times subjective. It gave me a solid overview of everything, it’s quite interesting at times, but every conflict involves background info- that then requires more background info- and it ultimately becomes a bit convoluted, confusing, etc. I appreciate all the info, it just isn’t laid out as clearly as possible- every detail is delved into whenever it comes up, as opposed to just concentrating all that info together. Making a straightforward narrative of the mongols would be difficult, I get it, but it’s tough jumping from the Mongols, to Poland and Hungary, to Hungary, back to Poland, then to explain something from Polish history, to how that affects Europe, and oh ya the Mongols won the battle. You can follow it all, it’s just denser than necessary as written, imo. I also found some characterizations overly subjective- I don’t mind an author making their own opinion clear, but I guess I look for evidence and sources, and if that supports the author’s position, great. That does occur here, but other times we’re just kinda told “this guy was a bad politician” with scant evidence, or we’re given opinions about people who just don’t matter much. I don’t really need to know how the author interprets the character of every conquered king, sometimes it’s enough to know the empire was weak and the Mongols took advantage. So.. honestly a frustrating read because there’s a lot of interesting stuff, sooo much info, but I wish it were edited like 5% more or somethin and just clarified a bit. Still, if you’re a history buff this is a fantastic overview of a lot of material. Would recommend, but only to those with patience who are really interested in history.