Podcast: Singing The Law and Riding The City; The Story of Ghengis Khan by Donald Carrick

Donald Carrick takes us through a history of Ghengis Khan and raises questions about how we read history. He confers what we know about Ghengis Khan as a series of stories which we repeat to ourselves, and invites the listener to treat them as such. Talking about one of the biggest empires ever, Donald communicates some insights as to how this could have come about.

Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan

This strange and infamous figure who helped shape the world, was known as a warlord but curiously he also developed various egalitarian laws such as abolishing slavery, adultery and ‘stealing women’… Here you can hear the analysis which Donald brings to the past and invites us to join him. Below you can read bullet points on what subjects he touches on.

 

Donald Carrick talks about the life of Ghenhis Khan by Ragged University on Mixcloud

Themes

  • A word on stories
  • The great power you already possess, personally you, that can undermine historical conceit
  • The future that should be
  • Something is coming
  • See the farmer
  • Someone is coming
  • A great city tumbles, the Wolf King speaks
  • Where the horde has come from and who rules them
  • Abolitions and reforms
  • A good man or a pragmatist?
  • Defining slavery and adultery
  • Cohesive or moral?
  • Gold from blood
  • The meritocracy of tens and the apprenticeship of hostages
  • The propaganda you still know.
  • Birth of a language
  • Singing the law
  • Engines of war and the nature of a soldier’s body
  • Riding the city
  • The tale of five hundred merchants
  • The tale of three envoys
  • The fury of the world conqueror, the devastation in his wake, the terror in its telling
  • A master of war but an apprentice in peace
  • Preparing for death
  • His sons turn on each other, in spite of all he tries
  • Death rides a red-grey horse
  • “Remember my name”

 

This is the second talk in a series of three which Donald is giving on the subject.  You can come along to the next one on the 29th October 2015.

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