Page 136 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

pastoral nomadic societies 1437

in Mongolia that were the political equals of the power- madism remains a viable economic strategy and is likely
ful native Chinese dynasties with whom they often to continue in some form far into the future.The histor-
warred.The most notable of these early empires was that ical legacy of the nomad remains: The Mongol hordes
of the Xiongnu, who rivaled the Han dynasty (206 BCE– galloping across the steppe, the Bedouin camel rider top-
220 CE) in power. A series of Turkish empires then faced ping a sand dune, and the tall Masai holding his long
off against the Chinese Sui and Tang dynasties from 581 spear are stereotypes so strongly engrained in the popu-
to 907. In the West the Huns under Attila created a sim- lar imagination that we could not eradicate them even if
ilarly powerful but relatively short-lived empire that we wanted to.
threatened the Romans during the fifth century.
Thomas J. Barfield
However, the most powerful nomad empire to emerge
on the world stage was that of the Mongols. Under Gen- See also Steppe Confederations; Warfare—Steppe Nomads
ghis Khan and his successors during the thirteenth cen-
tury they conquered most of Eurasia to create a world
Further Reading
empire that ran from the Pacific Ocean to the Danube
Barfield,T. J. (1989). The perilous frontier: Nomadic empires and China.
River and from the frozen forests of Siberia to the humid
Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
shores of the Persian Gulf. From the eighteenth century Barfield, T. J. (1993). The Nomadic alternative. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
onward, however, the steppe nomads’ political power de- Prentice Hall.
Barth, F. (1961). Nomads of south Persia. Boston: Little, Brown.
clined significantly because the gunpowder revolution Beck, L. (1986). The Qashqa’i of Iran. New Haven, CT: Yale University
reduced their military advantage.The growing imperial Press.
Bulliet, R. (1977). The camel and the wheel. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
power of czarist Russia in the West and Qing China
University Press.
(1644–1912) in the East led to the division of the Eur- Goldstein, M., & Beall, C. (1989). Nomads of western Tibet:The survival
asian steppe between them by the beginning of the nine- of a way of life. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California
Press.
teenth century and destroyed the autonomy of the steppe Humphrey, C., & Sneath, D. (1999). The end of nomadism?: Society,
tribes. state, and the environment in Inner Asia. Durham, NC: Duke Uni-
versity Press.
Ibn, K. (1967). The Muqaddimah (F. Rosenthal,Trans.; N. Dawood, Ed.).
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Pastoral Nomads Today Ingold, T. (1980). Hunters, pastoralists and ranchers. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press.
Although pastoral nomadic societies can be found Kelly, R. (1985). The Nuer conquest:The structure and development of an
throughout their traditional ranges, they no longer have expansionist system. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Khazanov,A. M. (1994). Nomads and the outside world (2nd ed.). Madi-
the influence they once did.The military power that they
son: University of Wisconsin Press.
wielded as mounted archers or desert warriors disap- Khazanov, A. M., & Wink, A. (Eds.). (2001). Nomads in the sedentary
peared centuries ago. Similarly their ability to remain world. Richmond, UK: Curzon.
Lancaster, W. (1997). The Rwala Bedouin today (2nd ed.). Prospect
autonomous by isolating themselves deep in the desert Heights, IL: Waveland Press.
on the steppes or in the mountains was trumped by Lattimore, O. (1940). Inner Asian frontiers of China. New York: Ameri-
can Geographical Society.
motorized vehicles and airplanes. As the world’s popu-
Morgan, D. (1986). The Mongols. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
lation has expanded, they have lost pasture areas to farm- Morris, D. R. (1965). The washing of the spears: A history of the rise of
ers who have attempted to plow land that is only the Zulu nation under Shaka and its fall in the Zulu War of 1879. New
York: Simon & Schuster.
marginally fit for agriculture. Modern governments that Ratchnevsky, P. (1991). Genghis Khan: His life and legacy (T. Haining,
have a bias against people who move and that employ Trans. & Ed.). Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
Tapper, R. (1997). Frontier nomads of Iran:A political and social history
active policies to settle nomads have accelerated this
of the Shahsevan. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
process. Still, in many parts of the world pastoral no- Trippett, F. (1974). The first horsemen. New York: Time-Life Books.