Second looks
I well remember the revelation I had one day in my junior high history class. We were studying the fall of the Roman Empire, and we got to the point in history where the barbarians are at the gates. Classically this is presented as the fall of a great people before lesser, slobbering, uncultured, undeserving barbarous hordes. Although I’d heard about these barbarians before, for some reason this time I realized that these were what we would now call Germans, and I thought, “Hey, these are my people.” And then, quick as that, I thought, “Who says they were barbarians?” The answer: other people other.
History’s funny that way.
I just finished reading <a href=”http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0609809644?ie=UTF8&tag=counterintu0f-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0609809644″>Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World</a><img src=”http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=counterintu0f-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0609809644″ width=”1″ height=”1″ border=”0″ alt=”” style=”border:none !important; margin:0px !important;” />, a book I picked up while back East.
Here’s the image of Genghis Khan I grew up with in school and have gotten used to via innumerable cultural references: bloodthirsty conqueror with no regard for human life. I never gave that any further thought until reading this book, which paints Genghis Khan as someone who treated most of his people far better than the dictators, tyrants and aristocrats before him, who shared the wealth of his conquests across his lands, who was tolerant of all religions, and who encouraged the spread of science and learning. And he did this while conquering a terrain four times the size of the Roman Empire at its height, and doing it in 20 years (it took the Romans 200).
Who knew?
My first thought about all this was: If someone can rehabilitate the image of Genghis Khan, for God’s sake, then maybe there’s hope for George W. Bush’s legacy. But then I realized: Genghis Khan was a top-notch manager; history is never kind to incompetents.
On a similar note, it was nice last week to see another round of releases from the Nixon tapes. Every time I’m afraid we’ll all finally swallow the idea that he was a terrific statesman and gifted president who got unfairly entangled in the sort of scandal that “everyone” does, well, then more transcripts come out and set us straight again. There’s something to be grateful for.