Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figure and maps
- List of contributors
- Note on transliteration
- List of abbreviations
- Maps
- Introduction
- PART ONE THE RISE OF THE CHINGGISIDS
- 1 Inner Asia c. 1200
- 2 The Mongol age in Eastern Inner Asia
- 3 The Mongols in Central Asia from Chinggis Khan's invasion to the rise of Temür: the Ögödeid and Chaghadaid realms
- 4 The Jochid realm: the western steppe and Eastern Europe
- Part Two LEGACIES OF THE MONGOL CONQUESTS
- Part Three CHINGGISID DECLINE: 1368–c. 1700
- Part Four NOMADS AND SETTLED PEOPLES IN INNER ASIA AFTER THE TIMURIDS
- Part Five NEW IMPERIAL MANDATES AND THE END OF THE CHINGGISID ERA (18th–19th CENTURIES)
- Bibliography
- Index
1 - Inner Asia c. 1200
from PART ONE - THE RISE OF THE CHINGGISIDS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figure and maps
- List of contributors
- Note on transliteration
- List of abbreviations
- Maps
- Introduction
- PART ONE THE RISE OF THE CHINGGISIDS
- 1 Inner Asia c. 1200
- 2 The Mongol age in Eastern Inner Asia
- 3 The Mongols in Central Asia from Chinggis Khan's invasion to the rise of Temür: the Ögödeid and Chaghadaid realms
- 4 The Jochid realm: the western steppe and Eastern Europe
- Part Two LEGACIES OF THE MONGOL CONQUESTS
- Part Three CHINGGISID DECLINE: 1368–c. 1700
- Part Four NOMADS AND SETTLED PEOPLES IN INNER ASIA AFTER THE TIMURIDS
- Part Five NEW IMPERIAL MANDATES AND THE END OF THE CHINGGISID ERA (18th–19th CENTURIES)
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Neighbours of the steppe
The steppe, extending from the Danube to Manchuria, has been uncharitably termed the ‘inhospitable land of the barbarian’. These ‘barbarians’ were largely pastoral nomads whose neighbours viewed them as avaricious and violent marauders. In the west, this nomadic world was framed by Hungary and Rus', the latter an increasingly divided state contested by rival branches of the Riurikid ruling house. Both states included steppe lands and pastoral nomadic populations that had taken service with the Hungarian and Rus' rulers. South of the steppe lands and the fabled Silk Road cities of its southern rim (Samarqand, Bukhara, Kashghar) were the petty states of the Balkans, the fading Byzantine Empire, the Seljukid state of Rūm (Anatolia), Georgian-dominated Transcaucasia, and the fragmented ʿAbbāsid Caliphate and post-Seljuk polities of the Near East. In the east, China was also politically divided. In the north-west were the Tanguts (Chin. Xixia, 1038–1227) in Ningxia, Shaanxi and Gansu, extending to Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang. They spoke a language related to or a branch of Tibeto-Burmese. South of the Yangtze River was the ethnically Chinese Southern Song state (1127–1279), with its capital at Hangzhou. The Manchu-Tungusic Jurchen dominated the north-east, its ruling elite moving between five capitals (including Beijing). In 1125, the Jurchen had toppled the Khitan-Liao dynasty (907–1125), another Inner Asian people of Mongolic, or perhaps ‘para-Mongolic’, ethno-linguistic affiliations and took the Chinese dynastic name Jin (‘Golden’, 1115–1234).
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- The Cambridge History of Inner AsiaThe Chinggisid Age, pp. 9 - 25Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009
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