Masters of the Earth

Roman Hautala is Docent in the Department of History at the University of Oulu, Finland. He is the author of Crusaders, Missionaries and Eurasian Nomads in the 13th–14th Centuries (2017) and co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of the Mongols and Central-Eastern Europe (2021).

An essential work for the study of the Mongol Empire and for Eastern Europe. Roman Hautala does a masterful job of untangling the complicated knots of the history of the Golden Horde and then weaves it into an expansive, but lucid, narrative covering 300 years. For the size and duration of the empire, this volume is concise, yet still remains comprehensive. - Timothy May, University of North Georgia, author of The Mongol Empire and The Mongol Art of WarMasters of the Earth is a substantial and carefully researched political history of the Golden Horde from its origins in the Mongol western campaigns to the dissolution of its successor states in the early sixteenth century. Hautala’s book is a serious achievement, drawing on an extraordinary range of unpublished documents and primary sources. This book has the potential to become the standard English-language reference work on the Golden Horde for the coming decade. - Lorenzo Pubblici, Professor of Premodern Central Asian History and Cultures, University of Naples L’Orientale, and co-author of Venice and the Mongols: The Eurasian Exchange That Transformed the Medieval WorldAmong the successor states of the Mongol Empire, the Golden Horde is often overlooked. In Masters of the Earth, Roman Hautala combines the familiar Persian, Arabic, and Rus’ chronicles with rare materials gleaned from manuscripts and archives all over Europe to write a political history of the Golden Horde unprecedented in detail and insight. - Christopher P. Atwood, Presidential Distinguished Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania