I. Looking Back and Around: The Long History of Pastoral Nomads
A. The World of Pastoral Societies
1. Small populations on large amounts of land: Pastoralists were less productive than settled agriculturalists, resulting in smaller populations that required larger expanses of land. They specialized in making a living off unproductive land. These grasslands could not sustain humans, but they could sustain their herds of animals.
Thus, the pastoralists lived off meat, milk, and blood rather than grains.
2. High levels of social and gender equality: With low population density and relatively simple social structures, these societies enjoyed much greater social equality than their settled neighbors. Women engaged in most of the same tasks as men in terms of raising the herd and riding.
3. Mobile but in contact with settled agriculturalists: While they were a mobile population that lived off their animals, they still needed the products of settled societies.
Thus, even though they might distain the agriculturalists, they were frequently in conduct with them and exchanged their animals products for the manufactured goods of the towns and cities.
4. Tribal alliances and military power of horsemen: Without urban centers, it was very difficult to sustain a state system. A few charismatic individuals, such as Genghis
Khan, could forge alliances, but the strength of the union was dependent on wealth coming in and would fall apart when their economic fortuned turned.
I. Looking Back and Around: The Long History of Pastoral Nomads
B. Before the Mongols: Pastoralists in History
1. Modun of the Xiongnu (r. 210–174 B.C.E.): This leader united a diverse group of tribes from Manchuria and Central Asia. He engaged in revolutionary change of the military and forced the Han Chinese to negotiate with the Xiongnu as equals.
2. Bedouin Arabs and the rise of Islam: These nomadic Arabs made an alliance with the urban-based merchants led by Muhammad and served as the main military power for the prophet. They also helped to spread Islam as they moved about the Arabian
Peninsula.
3. Turkic nomads versus China, Persia, and Byzantium: A variety of Turkic speaking peoples came out of the steppes of Central Asia and threatened these settled agricultural empires. Soon aspects of Turkic culture influenced the Northern Chinese court. The Seljuk Turks fought a series of wars with Byzantium but it was the Ottoman
Turks that finally overthrew the last vestige of Rome in 1453. The Ottomans then became a very urban society and culture.
4. Berbers and the Almoravid Empire: In Northwest Africa, the Berber people converted to Islam but were superficial in their practice. After 1039, Ibn Yasin, a scholar who turned from the Hadj, launched a reform campaign to make the practice of the faith more orthodox. Soon the movement became an expansionist state that moved into
Spain and controlled much of present-day Morocco. Like other examples, the Almoravids became urbanized and enjoyed impressive art and architecture.
II. Breakout: The Mongol Empire
A. From Temujin to Chinggis Khan: The Rise of the Mongol Empire
1. Desperate and poor childhood: After his father was murdered, his resourceful mother led the immediate family through a marginal existence. But as he won a series of battles and forged alliances based on loyalty and not kinship, Temujin steadily built up a powerful force.
2. Generous to friends, ruthless to enemies: In this process, he gained a reputation for destroying his enemies but rewarding those loyal to him. He also incorporated warriors from defeated tribes into his army.
3. Supreme leader of a Great Mongol Nation, 1206: A tribal assembly made him the great leader and gave him the title of Chinggis Khan.
4. Started five decades of expansionist
