Mongol leader Genghis Khan was a mighty warrior, more powerful even than Alexander the Great or Napoleon. He successfully waged war on two fronts simultaneously while also conquering Russia in winter. So how did an illiterate nomad from a nation of just 2 million people conquer and subdue most of the known world—from the Adriatic to the Pacific, the Arctic Ocean to the Persian Gulf? Were the Mongols simply a horde of thugs, guilty of the greatest massacres in history until the twentieth century? Or, were they actually the architects of the first globalization, spurring on the Age of Discovery and the Renaissance? In a fast-paced panorama of warfare from China to Poland, Frank McLynn answers these and other questions, illuminating the genius of Genghis Khan.