Book Review: Mongols, Huns & Vikings
My trip to the Book Barn of Niantic, CT back in 2024 is the gift that keeps on giving, as I finally completed another book purchased during that trip. I recently finished reading Mongols, Huns & Vikings written by Hugh Kennedy, a British medievalist and professor emeritus at SOAS University of London, edited by John Keegan, and published by Cassel & Co (which has since become self-publishing services Cassel Publishers) as part of Cassel’s History of Warfare series in 2002. (As a further publishing history note, twelve of the potentially twenty-three books appear to have been picked up by Smithsonian for its seemingly out-of-print History of Warfare series, but this book was not one of them.) Best described as an intellectual coffee table book, this 8" by 10 3/4" volume combines historical research with high resolution, full color images of the artwork, artifacts, and landscapes affected by nomadic peoples from Eurasian history. The blend of beautiful pictures and fascinating facts made this an excellent comparative history resource.
Imagine my delight to find the book covered more cultures than Mongols, Huns, and Vikings! Also in the book were chapters on Arabs and Turks in the Middle Ages, along with European ethnic groups interacting with Mongols and Vikings. Colorful maps not only depict battles and empirical territories but also help modern readers understand how our ancestors interacted. I also appreciated that the book used straightforward language in most cases. A middle school student with an interest in history could read this book with only a few spots of difficulty.
I also enjoyed how this book overlapped with other books I have previously reviewed. The Birth of the West included details on Viking and Muslim warfare, The Guinness Book of World Records 1492 had often whimsical facts about multiple cultures, and A Pictorial History of Costume showed what they wore, even citing the same references appearing in Mongols. Out of these four books, I found Mongols to be the easiest to read, not only with clear writing style but also due to text size and use of images. Guinness and Pictorial suffered from small text despite lovely illustrations, and Birth was more intellectual and dense than I was looking for. A few of the references in Mongols are slightly dated, as the book is over twenty years old.
While I am not a military history buff, I would be interested in reading other books within the series, especially The War of the Ancient Greeks, Roman Warfare, and Future Warfare (which was apparently published as Another Bloody Century in 2006 by Phoenix, an imprint of Orion book). While it may be somewhat difficult to locate a copy for purchase, it seems to be distributed in many public library networks; C/W MARS currently has four copies. If you are interested in learning more about nomadic lifestyles in Eurasian history, or you want a smart-looking book for your living room, this is an ideal choice.
Mongols, Huns and Vikings: Nomads at War by Hugh KennedyMy rating: 5 of 5 stars