By 1206, Temujin had consolidated power over the quarrelsome confederation of tribes on the Mongolian steppe. That year a quriltai, or general assembly of Mongol nobles, named Temujin Genghis Khan, recognizing his sole leadership over a nation of two million nomads. Genghis and his genius generals--including Subedei, the most successful military commander in history--swept into northern China, then home of the Jin dynasty, where they consistently defeated numerically superior forces. Genghis then turned west to the Khwarezmian Empire, whose shah had foolishly executed Genghis's envoys, among other insults. The Mongols made an even greater showing in Khwarezmia, though their treatment of civilians bordered on genocidal (cities that surrendered immediately were spared, the rest were massacred). The Mongol tide continued through Khwarezmia into Eastern Europe, stretching from Poland to Korea at its height under Ogodei, son of Genghis.
Genghis Khan: His Conquests, His Empire, His Legacy by Frank McLynn (Richard and John; Marcus Aurelius) is a staggeringly ambitious biography of history's greatest conqueror and a singularly divisive figure. McLynn treads a fine line between propaganda (like inflated civilian casualties tallied by Genghis's contemporary foes) and recent historical revisionism depicting the Khan as a champion of tolerance and civilization (like in the bestseller Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford), finding a still blood-soaked middle ground between these extremes. Though Mongolian names and Central Asian geographic features may run together after the first hundred pages, Genghis Khan is fascinating enough to appeal to any history fan. --Tobias Mutter, freelance reviewer