Hope Michael (ed.) Power, politics and tradition in the Mongol Empire and the Īlkhānate of Iran

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. — xi, 238 p. — ISBN: 9780198768593.Te present study will provide a new interpretation of how political authority was conceived and exercised in the early Mongol Empire (1227–59) and its successor state in Iran, the Īlkhānate (1258–1335). In what follows, it will be shown that two streams of political authority emerged after the death of Chinggis Khan: the collegial and the patrimonialist. Each of these streams represented the economic and political interests of different groups within the Mongol Empire, respectively, the propertied aristocracy—made up by commanders, queens, and junior princes — and the central government consisting of the khan, his bureaucracy, and household staff. The supporters of both streams claimed to adhere to the ideal of Chinggisid rule, but their different statuses within the Mongol community led them to hold divergent views of what constituted legitimate political authority. This book will detail the origin of, and the differences between, these two streams; analyse the role that these streams played in the political development of the early Mongol Empire; and assess the role that ideological tension between the two streams played in the events leading up to the division of the empire.