Guillaume Boucher: For more information on the goldsmith, see Leonardo Olschki, Guillaume Boucher: A French Artist at the Court of the Khans (New York: Greenwood, 1946), p. 5.
“I ate a little”: William of Rubruck, “The Journey of William of Rubruck,” in The Mongol Mission: Narratives and Letters of the Franciscan Missionaries in Mongolia and China in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, ed. Christopher Dawson (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1955), p. 163.
“Is there any man”: Ibid., p. 189.
“no one shall dare to speak”: Ibid., p. 191.
“We Mongols believe in one God”: Ibid., p. 195.
by the power of the eternal God”: Ibid.
“And from what book”: Juvaini, Genghis Khan, p. 604.
a commercial world not yet accustomed: For more on the Mongol monetary system, see Allsen, Mongol Imperialism, pp. 171–188, and Allsen, “Rise of the Mongolian Empire,” p. 402.
the word assassin: Dante became one of the earliest European writers to use the word in print. It appeared in Book XIX of The Divine Comedy, and his usage made it apparent that he expected the reader to know its meaning full welclass="underline" “Io stava come il frate che confessa Lo perfido assassin . . .” (“like a friar who is confessing the wicked assassin . . .”).
“Five hundred and fifteen years”: René Grousset, The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia, trans. Naomi Walford (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1970), p. 357.
The Armenian chronicler Grigor of Akanc: in “History of the Nation of the Archers (the Mongols) by Grigor of Akanc,” trans. Robert P. Blake and Richard N. Frye. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 12 (December 1949).
had conquered the heart of the Muslim World: For more on the Mongol conquests, see David Morgan, The Mongols (Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell), 1986, pp. 154–155.
Hulegu ordered one hundred thousand piglets: See Blake and Frye, “History,” p. 343.
Khubilai’s cosmopolitan persona: On all issues related to Khubilai khan, the most authoritative source is Morris Rossabi, Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988).
“Central Rule”: Herbert Franke, From Tribal Chieftain to Universal Emperor and God: The Legitimation of the Yüan Dynasty (München: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Sitzungsberichete, vol. 2, 1978), page 27.
a lowering of temperatures: For information on weather and climate in the Mongol imperial era, see William Atwell, “Volcanism and Short-Term Climatic Change in East Asia and World History, c. 1200–1699,” Journal of World History 12, no. 1 (Spring 2001), p. 50.
“We were then, and you are today”: Rashid al-Din, The Successors of Genghis Khan, trans. John Andrew Boyle (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), p. 261.
III. The Global Awakening: 1262–1962
“Asia is devouring us”: Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain, trans. John E. Woods (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995), p. 238.
8. Khubilai Khan and the New Mongol Empire
“This Great Khan”: Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo, trans. Ronald E. Latham (London: Penguin, 1958), p. 113.
“Within the precincts”: Sir John Mandeville, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, the Voyage of Johannes de Plano Carpini, the Journal of Friar William de Rubruquis, the Journal of Friar Odoric (New York: Dover, 1964), p. 348.
“in a certain part of the hall”: Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo: The Complete Yule-Cordier Edition (New York: Dover, 1993), vol. 1, p. 382.
the number of capital offenses: Figures on executions are taken from Paul Heng-chao Ch’en, Chinese Legal Tradition Under the Mongols: The Code of 1291 as Reconstructed (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1979), pp. 44–45.
“first use reason to analyze”: Ibid., p. 154.
“the laws and customs of cities”: Secret History, § 263. For a fuller description of Mongol law, see Valentin A. Riasanovsky, Fundamental Principles of Mongol Law, Uralic and Altaic Series, vol. 43 (Bloomington: Indiana University Publications, 1965), p. 83.
Khubilai’s administration: For an extensive assessment of the Mongol administration, see Elizabeth Endicott-West, Mongolian Rule in China: Local Administration in the Yuan Dynasty (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989).
“To refuse it would be to incur the death penalty:” Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo, trans. Teresa Waugh (New York: Facts on File, 1984), p. 88.
rejected some parts of Chinese Culture: For more on Mongol cultural influences, see Adam T. Kessler, Empires Beyond the Great Walclass="underline" The Heritage of Genghis Khan (Los Angeles: Natural History Museum, 1993).
promoted general literacy: For more on Mongol education in China, see Morris Rossabi, “The Reign of Khubilai Khan,” in The Cambridge History of China, vol. 6, Alien Regimes and Border States, 907–1368, ed. Herbert Franke and Denis Twitchett (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 447.
consisted of six parts: The parts commemorated and reenacted the conquests of the Kereyid and Ong Khan; the Tangut; the Chin-Chin; the West and Honan (south of the Yellow River); Sichuan and the Thai state of Nanchao; and Korea and Vietnam. Sechen Jagchid and Paul Hyer, Mongolia’s Culture and Society (Boulder: Westview, 1979), p. 241.
performing artists such as actors and singers: For more information on Mongol support of the arts, see Morris Rossabi, Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), p. 161.
“Like an ancient ruin”: Quoted in Jacques Gernet, Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion, 1250–1276, trans. H. M. Wright (New York: Macmillan, 1962), p. 237.
“The greatest legacy of the Mongol Empire”: Hidehiro Okada, “China as a Successor State to the Mongol Empire,” in The Mongol Empire and Its Legacy, ed. Reuven Amitai-Preiss and David O. Morgan (Leiden: Koninklijke Brill NV, 1999), p. 260.
revitalized and enlarged the Sung navy: For information on the Mongol fleet and the invasions of Japan, see James P. Delgado, “Relics of the Kamikaze,” Archaeology (January 2003), pp. 36–41, and Theodore F. Cook Jr., “Mongol Invasion,” Quarterly Journal of Military History (Winter 1999), pp. 8–19.
In the hunting procession: Marco Polo, The Travels of Marco Polo, trans. Ronald Latham (London: Penguin, 1958), pp. 141–145.
the traditional Mongol emphasis on meat and dairy products: For more information on Mongol food in China, see Paul D. Buell, Historical Dictionary of the Mongol World Empire (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow, 2003), pp. 309–312, and Paul D. Buell and Eugene N. Anderson, A Soup for the Qan: Chinese Dietary Medicine of the Mongol Era as Seen in Hu Szu-Hui’s Yin-Shan Cheng-Yao (London: Kegan Paul, 2000).