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How long does it take to read Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World?

Jack Weatherford

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford takes about 6 hours 27 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.

About 6 hours 27 minutes

A weekend read

First published 2004. 352 pages, about 96,800 words.

13 days at 30 minutes a day

Estimate based on 275 words per page.

At other speeds

Slow, 150 words a minute 10 hours 45 minutes
Average, 250 words a minute 6 hours 27 minutes
Fast, 400 words a minute 4 hours 2 minutes

The page count is the median across 6 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.

About the book

The name Genghis Khan often conjures the image of a relentless, bloodthirsty barbarian on horseback leading a ruthless band of nomadic warriors in the looting of the civilized world. But the surprising truth is that Genghis Khan was a visionary leader whose conquests joined backward Europe with the flourishing cultures of Asia to trigger a global awakening, an unprecedented explosion of technologies, trade, and ideas. In Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, Jack Weatherford, the only Western scholar ever to be allowed into the Mongols' "Great Taboo"--Genghis Khan's homeland and forbidden burial site--tracks the astonishing story of Genghis Khan and his descendants, and their conquest and transformation of the world. Fighting his way to power on the remote steppes of Mongolia, Genghis Khan developed revolutionary military strategies and weaponry that emphasized rapid attack and siege warfare, which he then brilliantly used to overwhelm opposing armies in Asia, break the back of the Islamic world, and render the armored knights of Europe obsolete. Under Genghis Khan, the Mongol army never numbered more than 100,000 warriors, yet it subjugated more lands and people in twenty-five years than the Romans conquered in four hundred. With an empire that stretched from Siberia to India, from Vietnam to Hungary, and from Korea to the Balkans, the Mongols dramatically redrew the map of the globe, connecting disparate kingdoms into a new world order. But contrary to popular wisdom, Weatherford reveals that the Mongols were not just masters of conquest, but possessed a genius for progressive and benevolent rule. On every level and from any perspective, the scale and scope of Genghis Khan's accomplishments challenge the limits of imagination. Genghis Khan was an innovative leader, the first ruler in many conquered countries to put the power of law above his own power, encourage religious freedom, create public schools, grant diplomatic immunity, abolish torture, and…

Subjects: Biography & Autobiography, History, Nonfiction, Mongols, Kings and rulers, Biography

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