The Secret History of the Mongols

‘By the Power of Eternal Heaven; By the Protection of the Majestic Imperial Fortune.’

Born a poor nomad in an unforgiving world, Chinggis (or Genghis) Khan’s Mongol armies transformed the 13th century, ultimately ruling an empire that would stretch from Korea to Crimea and Syria to Siberia.

Much of what we know about Chinggis comes from the horrified comments of foreign chroniclers, but there is one exceptional and authentic source: The Secret History of the Mongols, written after Chinggis’s death to be read exclusively by the Mongolian imperial family (hence ‘secret’).

This new translation gives an unparalleled insight into one of the transformative moments in world history and a society where unchecked swagger, menace, and ambition lay side by side with unexpected tenderness and vulnerability.
Based around kinship, horses, yurts, weapons and immense spaces, The Secret History is a sometimes opaque and sometimes mysterious saga that puts the reader face to face with nomad warlords and their ladies impelled by Heaven’s uncanny destiny. This remarkable new translation does full justice to the earliest surviving work written in Mongolian.

With an introduction by translator Christopher P. Atwood.