The I. B. Tauris Short Histories series aims to publish introductory texts that will provide a fresh perspective on the way history is taught and understood. This goal is certainly achieved in George Lane's A Short History of the Mongols, which provides a political history of the Mongol Empire from the rise of Chinggis Khan (1165–1227) to the fall of the Mongolian successor states in the fourteenth century. The book is intended primarily for a student audience and will give readers a solid foundation in the major events, personalities, and institutions of the Mongol Empire, while also advancing a new framework for approaching premodern Eurasian history. This framework identifies the Mongol Empire as the “world's first experience of globalisation” and is the culmination of Lane's earlier work on the Ilkhanate and Yuan China (p. 7). This research leads Lane to conclude that Chinggis Khan and his successors brought about the political, social, and economic revival of Eurasia following a stagnant twelfth century. The book therefore provides an important intervention in not only the history of the Mongol Empire but also world history more broadly.

Lane's treatment of the Mongol Empire confronts the long-held stereotype that the Mongols were bloodthirsty barbarians and proposes a much more nuanced view of their legacy based on the global, cosmopolitan court culture created by the Chinggisids (descendants of Chinggis Khan). The evolution of this culture began with the career of Chinggis Khan, whom Lane identifies as leading both a social and a political revolution that saw the Mongols shift from a kinship-based society made up of small clans to a new imperial system built around loyalty to the qa'an (great khan) (chapters 1 and 2). He then moves on to discuss the Mongol conquest of Central Eurasia, Iran, and the Pontic Steppe before addressing the fracturing of the empire into four autonomous successor states, headed by rival branches of Chinggis Khan's family (chapters 3 and 4). This division, which followed the death of Möngke Qa'an in 1259, was not terminal to the Mongol Empire. Lane describes a blossoming of Mongol court culture under the Toluids (descendants of Chinggis's fourth son Tolui), ruling in the Near East (the Ilkhanate) and East Asia (the Yuan) respectively. This new conceptualization of Mongol history is an elegant way for Lane to reconcile the four Chinggisid successor states, often treated separately by historians, in one consolidated work.

The “Toluid accommodation” is characterized by Lane as a rapprochement between the nomadic and sedentary populations of the Mongol Empire, which in turn produced an inclusive and ecumenical court culture (p. 161). Lane traces the Toluid accommodation back to their matriarch, Sorqoqtani Beki (d. 1254), who raised her sons Qubilai and Hülegü in the multicultural Mongol court produced by Chinggis Khan's conquests. Learning from Chinese, Tangut, Muslim, and Mongol instructors, these rulers forged a new style of administration, which promoted justice and prosperity for both the agricultural Iranian and Chinese populations as well as their Turco-Mongolian rulers. In the Ilkhanate, the Toluid project brought the return of Iranian identity and the conversion of the Ilkhans to Islam, while for the Yuan it saw the revival of Buddhism and the reconciliation of north and south China. Yet the Toluids’ greatest achievement, in Lane's eyes, was to broker interaction across the Mongol Empire, facilitating a cultural and technological cross-fertilization that embraced most of Eurasia. This section is undoubtedly the strongest of the book, as Lane draws upon old and newly discovered primary sources written in a number of languages to recreate the vitality and ingenuity of the Toluid project.

Lane's focus on the Toluid accommodation is a welcome and highly convincing attempt to reorient historians with a global perspective towards the Mongols’ legacy beyond the initial conquest. As a textbook, this work will update students on the recent scholarship in the field, as Lane draws effectively from a number of recent studies by prominent Mongolists. Nevertheless, instructors may be concerned that the book's structure causes Lane to neglect certain topics. The first half of the book observes a strictly chronological order, which sees Lane introduce the Jochid Ulus (1236–1502) prior to mentioning the rule of Chinggis Khan's successors—Ögödei, Güyük, and Möngke (1229–59)—who are almost entirely neglected. The same issue causes Lane to reference events and individuals that have not properly been introduced elsewhere, such as the Khwarazmshah's massacre of Chinggis Khan's envoys at Utrar, an event that sparked the Mongol invasion of Iran but is only briefly mentioned on page 63. Another problem arises from Lane's focus on the Toluid accommodation, which causes him to spend much less time on the Jochid and Chaghadaid khanates, both arguably as cosmopolitan as the Toluids. It is also regrettable that the book has a number of spelling and grammatical errors. While for the most part trivial, these errors may cause trouble for newcomers as there are often multiple spellings of names and inaccuracies in dates. These blemishes should not, however, prevent A Short History of the Mongols from becoming an important resource for lecturers teaching the history of the Mongol Empire.