The Mongol Empire, from Minneapolis Institute of Art, at artsmia.org.
Genghis Khan, responsible for an extension of the Grand Canal, is often vilified for the brutal tactics used to expand his Mongol Empire. As one might imagine, the expanse of this empire did have a lasting impact on the world, although perhaps not as violent as one might imagine. The UK newspaper, The Guardian, reports that Khan may have drastically decreased the carbon levels in the atmosphere by the very destruction of civilizations for which he is so scorned. Unfortunately for his eco-reputation, he also may have helped to replenish that carbon supply over time. National Geographic reports (as of 2003) that there are roughly 16 million male descendants of Khan living in the world today! That’s .05% of the world’s population. When one considers how much of the globe The Mongol Empire covered, it really should come as little surprise that he has so many long lost family members.
Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G. Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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