The Nomad as Empire Builder
A Comparison of the Arab and Mongol Conquests
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5161702 |
|---|---|
| Authors | John Joseph Saunders, John Saunders (0000-0003-3020-9916, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1965 |
| Volume | 13 |
| Issue | 52 |
| Pages | 79-103 |
| Publication date | 1965-12-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Diogenes (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0392-1921 • E-ISSN: 1467-7695 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/039219216501305205 |
| OpenAlex | W2093618470 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 9 |
History records innumerable assaults by the barbarian nomads of the steppes and deserts on the realms of civilization. In some cases, the invaders overturned an organized state, as the Hyksos did Egypt, the Ephthalites northern India, and the Kin northern China. In others, they were thrown back, as the Huns were from the Roman Empire and the Avars from Byzantium and Frankland. Some shed their barbarism and acquired the arts of civilization, like the Magyars and the Ottoman Turks, others remained illiterate pastoralists to the end, like the Scythians and the Cumans. Two created world empires as a result of conquests the scope and magnitude of which still grip the imagination. These were the Arabs of the seventh century and the Mongols of the thirteenth, whose spectacular achievements pose problems concerning the interrelationship of nomadic and sedentary societies and of the nature of the "drives" which impel pastoral peoples to burst out of their homelands not simply to raid and plunder but to establish political domination over their civilized neighbors. The Arab and Mongol conquests also raise the question why the former cleared the ground for the erection of a distinctive new world culture and the latter did not
Ancient history · Art · Empire · Political science · African Studies and Geopolitics · Eurasian Exchange Networks · History · Islamic Studies and History
| Citations per year | 0.43 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2005 - 2025 (21) |
| Highly cited | No |