The 1990s witnessed the beginning of a renaissance in the study of the Mongol Empire. Historians applied new theoretical approaches; posed new questions about economics, political culture, intellectual exchange, religion, and gender; and set out to recover the history of previously neglected regions and actors. The edited volume Along the Silk Roads in Mongol Eurasia: Generals, Merchants, and Intellectuals is, in the best way, the fruit of this decades-long renovation of the field.

Along the Silk Roads in Mongol Eurasia, edited by Michal Biran, Jonathan Brack, and Francesca Fiaschetti, brings together an international collective of established and emerging scholars of Mongol studies to present the biographies of fifteen individuals who built their careers under Mongol rule. The book's scope spans China to Russia and Anatolia, and many of its subjects travel vast distances during their lives. In addition to this mobility, two more themes that unite the diverse chapters of the Along the Silk Roads are interconnectedness and inclusivity. The volume demonstrates how the Mongols brought together disparate people in war and peace and how they successfully incorporated conquered elites into their empire. Along the Silk Roads affords readers a view of what might be termed the “unsung heroes” of the Mongol commonwealth: the local notables, military officers, traders, bureaucrats, and scholars who helped construct and sustain imperial institutions, commerce, and high culture.

The volume begins with an introduction by Biran, Brack, and Fiaschetti, presenting a summary of the rise of the Mongol Empire and its post-1260 fragmentation into the Yuan, Ilkhanid, Jochid, and Chaghadaid uluses. This section, which includes three maps of Mongol-ruled Eurasia, is comparatively brief given the complexity of its topic, but it provides sufficient background for the chapters that follow. The rest of the book is divided into three sections: “Generals,” “Merchants,” and “Intellectuals.”

The “Generals” section introduces six military men and women of the Mongol world. Biran's portrait of the warrior-princess Qutulun and Sara Nur Yıldız's reconstruction of the rise and fall of the frontier commander Baiju offer insights into the possibilities available to ethnic Mongol elites in the expanding empire as well as the cultural and political limits that shaped their lives. Florence Hodous's study of the siege warfare specialist Guo Kan, Masaki Mukai and Fiaschetti's biography of the maritime commander Yang Tingbi, and Vered Shurany's examination of the Qipchaq officer Tuqtuqa highlight the ethnic and geographic diversity of the Mongol military forces and degree to which the Mongols succeeded in co-opting non-Mongol specialists. Amir Mazor's account of the shifting allegiances of ethnically Mongol Mamluk officer Sayf al-Dīn Qipchaq al-Manṣūrī complicates this story by exploring how political and ethnic loyalties complicated military elites’ decision of whom to fight for.

The “Merchants” section of the volume offers four snapshots of commercial life in the Mongol world. Yihao Qiu's chapter on the merchant-spy Jaʿfar Khwāja reveals the variety of political and military responsibilities undertaken by merchants on the Mongols’ behalf. Matanya Gill's study of the Iraqi merchant Jamāl al-Dīn al-Ṭībī and Szilvia Kovács's work on the Golden Horde queen Taydula underscore Chinggisid rulers’ and nobles’ role in shaping trade patterns and making or breaking the careers of long-distance traders. John Giebfried's account of Baldwin of Hainaut, an ambassador from Latin-held Constantinople, affords an outsider's perspective on the Mongol economic world and highlights its importance for those societies that remained outside the Mongol commonwealth.

The volume's third section, “Intellectuals,” offers five examples of the scholarly endeavors and exchanges that were facilitated by Mongol rule. Brack's analysis of Ilkhanate historian Rashīd al-Dīn's writings on Buddhism and Yoichi Isahaya's chapter on the reception of Fu Mengzhi's astrological writings in Iran illustrate the transregional intellectual interactions in the commonwealth while also acknowledging the significance of pre-conquest contacts and the cultural limits that shaped Mongol-era exchanges. Hodong Kim's account of the career of the interpreter ʿĪsa Kelemechi explores the interconnection among political appointment, linguistic expertise, and scholarly exchange. Bruno De Nicola's study of the noblewoman Pādshāh Khatun highlights the role of female elites in sponsoring and contributing to high cultural production in the Mongol world. Or Amir's examination of Egyptian scholar Jalāl al-Dīn al-Akhawī's journey through Golden Horde lands at once brings to light an Inner Asian Islamic scholarly culture that developed in the wake of the Mongol conquests and reveals how older patterns of Islamic education continued despite the disruptions caused by those conquests.

Along the Silk Roads is an excellent addition to both Mongol Empire studies and the Global Middle Ages. Collectively, its chapters illustrate well the sheer scale of the political, economic, and intellectual world forged through the Mongol conquests and the ways in which individual human beings experienced this vast new world. At the same time, by weaving Egypt, India, and Europe into the history of Mongol rule, the authors remind readers that the Mongol commonwealth was not a peripheral society, but, rather, the cultural, military, and economic heartland of the Afro-Eurasian world in the high Middle Ages. In this sense, Along the Silk Roads contributes to the much-needed task of repositioning Europe and the Mediterranean world vis-à-vis the rest of the medieval world and constructing a truly global view of the Middle Ages.

When teaching the history of the Mongol Empire, one finds that the macro-level focus in much of the published research can render the field abstract and inaccessible to undergraduates. Along the Silk Roads clearly builds upon that research, but also stands as an antidote to it. The volume's focus on individual lives makes it an appealing and accessible addition to advanced undergraduate or graduate courses on Mongol, Asian, or global medieval history. Instructors of Mongol, Inner Asian, and Asian history will also find the editors’ inclusion of three biographies of women a welcome corrective to the often male-dominated narratives of the Mongol conquests. There is plenty here for researchers as well, who should find the bibliographies included at the end of each chapter quite useful for acquainting themselves with the work has been accomplished in Mongol studies in the past thirty years and considering directions for future research.