Genghis: Birth of an Empire
This is an action filled tale about Genghis Kahn. It is cinematic in tone, and by that I mean it is plot oriented, with one exciting thing after another happening in rapid succession. I could accept the violence when I felt it was motivated by the need to either kill or be killed; I could accept it when he was younger and simply fighting to survive. By the end, it was simply too much. Lots of gory fighting, with some love thrown in too.
What did I learn about the Mongolian way of life? Very little, that I didn’t know before. Sky burials are much better depicted in Sky Burial: An Epic Love Story of Tibet by Xinran, which is a biography.
There is a detailed Afterword that explains what if fact and what is fiction, and the author does stick to the known fact for much of the tale.
It is just not my kind of book, but sure, others may like it.
ETA: I read Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford as a counterbalance, and it was much better.
