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Professor Morris Rossabi to Offer Reassessment of the Mongol Empire

The Center for Asian Studies is pleased to help bring Professor Morris Rossabi of the City University of New York on Wednesday, March 11, to offer new insights into the history of the Mongol empire in "Genghis Khan and the Mongols: Barbarians or Harbingers of Global History."

Most people perceived the thirteenth-century Mongols as plunderers, rapacious, and murderers and believed that their invasions and rule were destructive, if not disastrous.

Over the past two decades, specialists have challenged this depiction of the Mongols and of Genghis Khan and have focused on the Mongols’ contribution to trade, relations between East and West, and cultural, religious, technological, and artistic diffusion. These recent works have not ignored the bloodshed and the colossal damage the Mongols wrought, but they also have attempted their role in Eurasian history. In his slide-illustrated presentation, Professor Rossabi describes and assesses Genghis as an individual and the Mongols as a group.

Professor Rossabi's talk will begin at 4:00 p.m. in Humanities 250 on the CU-Boulder campus.