The Mongol Yuan Dynasty

Paper Summary:

This paper argues that even though the Mongols have been synonymous with barbarism and violence, the Mongol empire in China had its innovations.It looks at how the Mongols showed considerable open-mindedness towards different cultures, religions and the arts, borrowing Buddhist and other ideas and trying to understand the people ruled. Mention is made of communications, attention to agriculture, as in the Yellow River diversion project, and efforts to make use of existing elites without giving them too much power.

From the Paper:

"The Mongol Empire in China tends to have a low reputation attached, in view of the Mongols having destroyed the Song Dynasty that was associated with much achievement and which was certainly seen as superior by the Chinese elite. For many years, numbers of Chinese resisted the Mongols, remaining loyal to the southern Song kingdom, keeping alive the dream of a Song restoration. (Schirokauer, 1998, 221) It was helpful to see the Mongolian invader as wild, senselessly violent and also, primitive, as was not exactly accurate, as this short paper explains."

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