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Genghis Khan lived maybe 60 years on this earth, back in the
12th and 13th centuries. Yet his fame—or infamy—shows
no sign of sharing his mortality. Genghis’s icy eyes grace
Mongolian money, and his people still cherish the legend that
the great ruler will come again.
Why? Because Genghis welded rival tribes into a nation, then
made that nation the heart of the largest land empire the
world has ever seen. Genghis’s dominion stretched from
Central Asia’s Aral Sea to the Yellow Sea of China.
After his death, in 1227, his descendants pressed
farther—reaching the Volga, clutching the Black Sea
in their embrace, and unifying China.
The central figure of this global drama began as—and
remained—a survivor. In childhood he weathered his
father’s murder, captivity, the kidnapping of his wife,
and the recurring threat of starvation. Trauma, and the
stern climate of the steppe, tempered Genghis Khan into an
inimitable, almost indestructible warrior.
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