Jackson Peter. The Mongols and the West: 1221-1410

London and New York: Routledge, 2005, — 448 p. — (The medieval world). — ISBN13: 978-0-582-36896-5.In this timely book, Peter Jackson introduces us to the last great pulse of nomads from the inner Asian steppe to encounter the utterly different world of sedentary, urbanized European peoples. The military context of this story is a long front along the eastern fringe of late medieval Christendom, from Poland to the Crusader strongholds on the Syrian coast. Its cultural context is one of prejudice and curiosity stretching from Scotland to Japan, for this narrative of military encounters and diplomatic manoeuvring is set against a backdrop of fears of the unknown, rumours – frequently apocalyptic – and the details of everyday life which characterize one culture rather than another. In a fascinating exploration of the interactions between the Mongols and the Latin West, Professor Jackson invites the reader to follow Mongol armies west to Germany and to travel east to China with Christian missionaries, diplomats and traders, stopping at courts and camps at all points in between. This latest addition to the Longmans Medieval World series is thus a sustained reflection on what makes one culture, or civilization, different from another, and reminds us that the history of the European Middle Ages has a world historical context.