Reuven Amitai – författare

The Mongols had a profound effect on the regions that they ruled in the eastern Muslim world, from the first Mongol invasion in 1219 through the breakup of the Ilkhanate in 1335 and the various, short-lived successor states. The influence of their rule - positive as well as negative - on the peoples of Iran and the neighboring countries can be seen in such diverse areas as demography, economics, art and other types of material culture, intellectual and religious life, military affairs, government, etc. This book brings together a series of studies that deal with some of these aspects in the state established around 1260 by Hülegü, grandson of Chinggis Khan: the development of the land-tenure system; the title ilkhan; the use of Arabic sources for the history of the Ilkhanate; the eventual conversion of the Mongols to Islam; and - most prominently - the ongoing war with the Mamluk Sultanate to the west.

Since the first millennium BCE, nomads of the Eurasian steppe have played a key role in world history and the development of adjacent sedentary regions, especially China, India, the Middle East, and Eastern and Central Europe. Although their more settled neighbors often saw them as an ongoing threat and imminent danger ""barbarians, in fact"" their impact on sedentary cultures was far more complex than the raiding, pillaging, and devastation with which they have long been associated in the popular imagination. The nomads were also facilitators and catalysts of social, demographic, economic, and cultural change, and nomadic culture had a significant influence on that of sedentary Eurasian civilizations, especially in cases when the nomads conquered and ruled over them. Not simply passive conveyors of ideas, beliefs, technologies, and physical artifacts, nomads were frequently active contributors to the process of cultural exchange and change. Their active choices and initiatives helped set the cultural and intellectual agenda of the lands they ruled and beyond. This volume brings together a distinguished group of scholars from different disciplines and cultural specializations to explore how nomads played the role of “agents of cultural change.” The beginning chapters examine this phenomenon in both east and west Asia in ancient and early medieval times, while the bulk of the book is devoted to the far flung Mongol empire of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. This comparative approach, encompassing both a lengthy time span and a vast region, enables a clearer understanding of the key role that Eurasian pastoral nomads played in the history of the Old World. It conveys a sense of the complex and engaging cultural dynamic that existed between nomads and their agricultural and urban neighbors, and highlights the non-military impact of nomadic culture on Eurasian history.Nomads As Agents of Cultural Change illuminates and complicates nomadic roles as active promoters of cultural exchange within a vast and varied region. It makes available important original scholarship on the new turn in the study of the Mongol empire and on relations between the nomadic and sedentary worlds.

The Mongols had a profound effect on the regions that they ruled in the eastern Muslim world, from the first Mongol invasion in 1219 through the breakup of the Ilkhanate in 1335 and the various, short-lived successor states. The influence of their rule - positive as well as negative - on the peoples of Iran and the neighboring countries can be seen in such diverse areas as demography, economics, art and other types of material culture, intellectual and religious life, military affairs, government, etc. This book brings together a series of studies that deal with some of these aspects in the state established around 1260 by Hülegü, grandson of Chinggis Khan: the development of the land-tenure system; the title ilkhan; the use of Arabic sources for the history of the Ilkhanate; the eventual conversion of the Mongols to Islam; and - most prominently - the ongoing war with the Mamluk Sultanate to the west.

The Mamluk Sultanate represents an extremely interesting case study to examine social, economic and cultural developments in the transition into the rapidly changing modern world. On the one hand, it is the heir of a political and military tradition that goes back hundreds of years, and brought this to a high pitch that enabled astounding victories over serious external threats. On the other hand, as time went on, it was increasingly confronted with "modern" problems that would necessitate fundamental changes in its structure and content. The Mamluk period was one of great religious and social change, and in many ways the modern demographic map was established at this time. This volume shows that the situation of the Mamluk Sultanate was far from that of decadence, and until the end it was a vibrant society (although not without tensions and increasing problems) that did its best to adapt and compete in a rapidly changing world.