Awards
Winner of the U.K.'s 2001 Thomas Cook Travel Book Award
Synopses & Reviews
Vivid, hilarious, and compelling, this eagerly awaited book takes its place among the travel classics. It is a thrilling tale of adventure, a comic masterpiece, and an evocative portrait of a medieval land marooned in the modern world. Eight and a half centuries ago, under Genghis Khan, the Mongols burst forth from Central Asia in a series of spectacular conquests that took them from the Danube to the Yellow Sea. Their empire was seen as the final triumph of the nomadic "barbarians."In this remarkable book, Stanley Stewart sets off on a pilgrimage across the old empire, from Istanbul to the distant homeland of the Mongol Hordes. The heart of his odyssey is a thousand-mile ride, traveling by horse, through trackless land. On a journey full of bizarre characters and unexpected encounters, he crosses the desert and mountains of Central Asia to arrive at the windswept grasslands of the steppes, the birthplace of Genghis Khan. (6 1/4 x 9 1/4, 288 pages, b&w photos)Stanley Stewart is a regular contributor to the Sunday Times and the Daily Telegraph. His work has taken him to more than fifty countries, and has won him numerous prestigious awards-including Travel Writer of the Year. He is the author of Old Serpent Nile, an account of his journey to the source of the river; and Frontiers of Heaven, the story of his journey across China, for which he won his first Thomas Cook/Daily Telegraph Travel Book Award.
Review
"In the Empire of Genghis Khan is, in some sense, an adventure travel narrative...but the exotic location and his derring-do are almost irrelevant. A Stanley Stewart travel story about a walk to the nearest corner would be a page-turner." Washington Post Book World
Review
"The author has a gift for merging history and anecdote and succeeds in engaging the reader throughout this informed narrative....Stewart vividly describes the days he spent on horseback with his guides, riding through desolate but breathtaking scenery....[An] excellent travelogue..." Publishers Weekly
Review
"[Stewart's] observations of social and spiritual detail are supplemented with relevant historical background, and his more memorable encounters are often imbued with affable if not self-deprecating humor. Stewart, the only author to have twice received the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award...offers an engaging travel memoir." Library Journal
Synopsis
Vivid, hilarious, and compelling, this eagerly awaited book takes its place among the travel classics. It is a thrilling tale of adventure, a comic masterpiece, and an evocative portrait of a medieval land marooned in the modern world. Eight and a half centuries ago, under Genghis Khan, the Mongols burst forth from Central Asia in a series of spectacular conquests that took them from the Danube to the Yellow Sea. Their empire was seen as the final triumph of the nomadic "barbarians."In this remarkable book Stanley Stewart sets off on a pilgrimage across the old empire, from Istanbul to the distant homeland of the Mongol hordes. The heart of his odyssey is a thousand-mile ride, traveling by horse, through trackless land. On a journey full of bizarre characters and unexpected encounters, he crosses the desert and mountains of Central Asia to arrive at the windswept grasslands of the steppes, the birthplace of Genghis Khan. (6 x 9, 288 pages)
Synopsis
Eight centuries ago, the Mongols burst forth from Central Asia in a series of spectacular conquests that took them from the Danube to the Yellow Sea. Their empire was seen as the final triumph of the nomadic "barbarians." But in time the Mongols sank back into the obscurity from which they had emerged, almost without trace. Remote and outlandish, Outer Mongolia became a metaphor for exile, a lost domain of tents and horsemen, little changed since the days of Genghis Khan.
In this remarkable book Stanley Stewart sets off in the wake of an obscure thirteenth century Franciscan friar on a pilgrimage across the old empire, from Istanbul to the distant homeland of the Mongol Hordes. The heart of his odyssey is a thousand-mile ride, travelling by horse among nomads from whom travel is a way of life, through a trackless land governed by winds and patterns of migration. On a journey full of bizarre characters and unexpected encounters, he crosses the desert and mountains of Central Asia, battles through the High Altay and the fringes of the Gobi, to the wind-swept grasslands of the steppes and the birthplace of Genghis Khan.
Vivid, hilarious, and compelling, this eagerly-awaited book will take its place among travel classics a thrilling tale of adventure, a comic masterpiece, and evocative portrait of a medieval land marooned in the modern world.
About the Author
STANLEY STEWART is a regular contributor to the Sunday Times and the Daily Telegraph. His work has taken him to more than fifty countries, and has won him numerous prestigious awards--including Travel Writer of the Year. He is the author of Old Serpent Nile, an account of his journey to the source of the river; and Frontiers of Heaven, the story of his journey across China, for which he won his first Thomas Cook/Daily Telegraph Travel Book Award.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements viii
Maps x
Prologue xv
1 Our Lady of the Mongols 1
2 The Voyage Out 15
3 The Kazakhstan Express 34
4 A Detestable Nation of Satan 54
5 The Birthday Party 69
6 Some Other World 85
7 The Naadam Wrestlers 105
8 The Shaman's Journey 123
9 On the Edge of the Gobi 144
10 Riding to Zag 161
11 Fishing with the Librarian 171
12 The Company of Old Men 186
13 The Wedding Battle 207
14 Another Country 228
15 In Search of Genghis Khan 241
Index 263