In the Empire of Genghis Khan: A Journey Among Nomads

(Paperback)

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Eight centuries ago, the Mongols burst forth from Central Asia in a series of spectacular conquests that took them from the Danube to the Yellow Sea. Their empire was seen as the final triumph of the nomadic "barbarians". But in time, the Mongols sank back into the obscurity from which they had emerged, almost without trace. Remote and outlandish, Outer Mongolia became a metaphor for exile, a lost domain of tents and horsemen, little changed since the days of Genghis Khan. In this book, Stanley Stewart sets off in the wake of an obscure 13th century Franciscan friar on a pilgimage across the old empire, from Istanbul to the distant homeland of the Mongol Hordes. The heart of his odyssey is a 1000-mile ride on horseback, among nomads, for whom travel is a way of life, through a trackless land governed by winds and patterns of migration. On a journey full of bizarre characters and unexpected encounters, he crosses the desert and mountains of Central Asia, battles through the High Altay and the fringes of the Gobi, to the wind-swept grasslands of the steppes and the birthplace of Genghis Khan.

Reviews

'Inspiring.' FHM 'Stanley Stewart is funny and clever.' Country Life

Author Bio

Stanley Stewart is a regular contributor to the Sunday Times and the Daily Telegraph where his work, taking him to over fifty countries, has won numberous prestigious awards, including, on three occasions, Travel Writer of the Year. He is the author of Old Serpent Nile, an account of his journey to the source of the river, and of Frontiers of Heaven, the story of his journey across China from Shanghai to Xinjiang, for which he won the Thomas Cook/Daily Telegraph Travel Book Award. He was born in Ireland, grew up in Canada and lives in London.