The Golden Horde and the Rise of Moscow


Book Description

The outermost khanate of the Mongol Empire was the Golden Horde, which conquered the Rus’ in northwestern Russia in the thirteenth century and continued to rule there in some capacity until the Russian Empire annexed Crimea, the khanate’s last holdout, in 1783. Despite vast cultural and geographic differences between Rus’ and the Mongols’ traditional homeland on the steppes of Central Asia, the Golden Horde flourished, with Moscow becoming the dominant principality. This fascinating and little-known history is related in thrilling, panoramic narrative detail and includes profiles of Rus’ leaders such as Alexander Nevsky and Daniel of Moscow.




The Golden Horde and the Rise of Moscow


Book Description

The outermost khanate of the Mongol Empire was the Golden Horde, which conquered the Rus’ in northwestern Russia in the thirteenth century and continued to rule there in some capacity until the Russian Empire annexed Crimea, the khanate’s last holdout, in 1783. Despite vast cultural and geographic differences between Rus’ and the Mongols’ traditional homeland on the steppes of Central Asia, the Golden Horde flourished, with Moscow becoming the dominant principality. This fascinating and little-known history is related in thrilling, panoramic narrative detail and includes profiles of Rus’ leaders such as Alexander Nevsky and Daniel of Moscow.




The Horde


Book Description

Cundill Prize Finalist A Financial Times Book of the Year A Spectator Book of the Year A Five Books Book of the Year The Mongols are known for one thing: conquest. But in this first comprehensive history of the Horde, the western portion of the Mongol empire that arose after the death of Chinggis Khan, Marie Favereau takes us inside one of the most powerful engines of economic integration in world history to show that their accomplishments extended far beyond the battlefield. Central to the extraordinary commercial boom that brought distant civilizations in contact for the first time, the Horde had a unique political regime—a complex power-sharing arrangement between the khan and nobility—that rewarded skillful administrators and fostered a mobile, innovative economic order. From their capital on the lower Volga River, the Mongols influenced state structures in Russia and across the Islamic world, disseminated sophisticated theories about the natural world, and introduced new ideas of religious tolerance. An eloquent, ambitious, and definitive portrait of an empire that has long been too little understood, The Horde challenges our assumptions that nomads are peripheral to history and makes it clear that we live in a world shaped by Mongols. “The Mongols have been ill-served by history, the victims of an unfortunate mixture of prejudice and perplexity...The Horde flourished, in Favereau’s fresh, persuasive telling, precisely because it was not the one-trick homicidal rabble of legend.” —Wall Street Journal “Fascinating...The Mongols were a sophisticated people with an impressive talent for government and a sensitive relationship with the natural world...An impressively researched and intelligently reasoned book.” —The Times




Russian History: A Very Short Introduction


Book Description

A leading international authority discusses all aspects of Russian history, from the struggle by the state to control society to the transformation of the nation into a multi-ethnic empire, Russia's relations with the West and the post-Soviet era. Original.




A Concise History of Russia


Book Description

Accessible to students, tourists and general readers alike, this book provides a broad overview of Russian history since the ninth century. Paul Bushkovitch emphasizes the enormous changes in the understanding of Russian history resulting from the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. Since then, new material has come to light on the history of the Soviet era, providing new conceptions of Russia's pre-revolutionary past. The book traces not only the political history of Russia, but also developments in its literature, art and science. Bushkovitch describes well-known cultural figures, such as Chekhov, Tolstoy and Mendeleev, in their institutional and historical contexts. Though the 1917 revolution, the resulting Soviet system and the Cold War were a crucial part of Russian and world history, Bushkovitch presents earlier developments as more than just a prelude to Bolshevik power.




Byzantium and the Rise of Russia


Book Description

This book describes the role of Byzantine diplomacy in the emergence of Moscow in the fourteenth century.




Muscovy and the Mongols


Book Description

A 1998 study of the impact of the Mongols on the Rus lands using a broad and extensive source base.




Russia and the Golden Horde


Book Description

This revelatory study of Russian medieval history and the age of Mongolian conquest “infuses the subject with fresh insights and interpretations” (History). In the 13th century, a Mongolian confederation known as The Golden Horde dominated a vast region including Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and the Caucuses. Though it would hold power into the 15th century, the influence of the Mongolian Empire on Russian history and culture has been all but ignored. Only in recent years have historians, archeologists, and philologists started to shed much needed light on this significant period of Mongol rule. In this enlightening new study, historian Charles Halperin assesses these recent findings to provide a comprehensive view of this chapter in Russian medieval history, offering a new interpretation of what role the Mongols played in the story of Russia. A Selection of the History Book Club “Combining rigorous analysis of the major scholarly findings with his own research, Halperin has produced both a much-needed synthesis and an important original work." –Library Journal




Russia and the Mongol Yoke


Book Description

An account of the long struggle between Russia and the Mongol empire between the years 1221-1502, reflecting the modern-day rivalry between Russia and the territories of the Caucasus and Central Asia




The Cambridge History of War: Volume 2, War and the Medieval World


Book Description

Volume II of The Cambridge History of War covers what in Europe is commonly called 'the Middle Ages'. It includes all of the well-known themes of European warfare, from the migrations of the Germanic peoples and the Vikings through the Reconquista, the Crusades and the age of chivalry, to the development of state-controlled gunpowder-wielding armies and the urban militias of the later middle ages; yet its scope is world-wide, ranging across Eurasia and the Americas to trace the interregional connections formed by the great Arab conquests and the expansion of Islam, the migrations of horse nomads such as the Avars and the Turks, the formation of the vast Mongol Empire, and the spread of new technologies – including gunpowder and the earliest firearms – by land and sea.