Ten out of ten for effort – the author’s for managing to summarise Chinggis Khan’s tumultuous trajectory in just 200 pages and me for managing (mostly) to keep up with it all. I found the names problematic, as they are so unfamiliar and I’d never heard of any of them – but that’s down to me not the author. The book is readable and accessible, although the fast pace demands m a lot of concentration. The later chapters were the most interesting to me, when the author goes into the name and its spelling, and explores Chinggis’s legacy and the vats number of potential descendants. However, it’s a vast topic to cover in one small book, and although it’s a great introduction, and I learnt a lot, I found it very dense and tough going at times.

The cutsey covers of this series are misleading--I expected something like "Leadership Secrets of Atilla the Hun," but this is really far more useful. The series editor has found scholars who know the figures and their times intimately, and are capable of writing 200 page summaries accessible and engaging for a mainstream reader. In this case, May is a master of the Secret History of the Mongols and the necessary anthropological and archaeological evidence needed to parse out what Chinggis Khan did, meant to do, it's effects on Southeast and Central Asia, what was propaganda for the descendants, and what resonates with Mongol practices today. It's fascinating, an excellent introduction to more difficult studies and easy to gobble up in a couple of sittings.

First to rate and review thin one.Ok, people, let's ride. Or something Chinggis would say.
My second read in Simply series , the books that aim to present complicated lives of significant historical individuals in a…well, less complicated manner.
Chinggis, spelled and pronounced thusly so eat it Wiki, the way I first learned it and the way the book’s author so compellingly insists is correct, was one of these complicated individuals who left a huge imprint on the world as we know it and as all these ubiquitous DNA tests tell us.
A properly self made man, Chinggis went on to conquer and rule over the largest contiguous empire in the world. Just think about it. Alexander the Great with great in his name didn’t come close. England did, in fact they technically grabbed more land than anyone, but it wasn’t contiguous. They sailed. The Mongols rode. Legendarily.
Chinggis was a really interesting character. Despite his warlord tendencies, he tended to try diplomacy first. Despite being unable to read or write, he highly valued education and made sure his children received it. Despite all that ambition and success in life, his death came ignominiously (a wild ass startled his ride, he got thrown and injured). And no one knows where he was buried. To this day.
Chinggis left an enormous legacy behind, and not just in his native Mongolia. The man lived largely, loved largely, leaving behind a wealth of genetic material from numerous wives and concubines. Depending on whatever statistics you believe, there are millions of his descendants walking around today. This appreciation of the good life and good fights made him a prototype for Conan the Barbarian. So yeah…epic.
Does this book do its subject justice? Yes, it does. The author is an expert on all things Mongolian and has written several books to that effect. It’s obvious he knows what he’s talking about. The book is concise (by the nature of the format) and dense with information. The overall tome is somewhat more scholarly than I prefer in my nonfiction, (which was also the case with Simply Einstein) , but it was plenty educational and informative. Great resource for anyone looking to learn more about Chinggis Khan. Thanks Netgalley.