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. Read more…
In June 2015, Donald Carrick gave his talk ‘Temujin Rising: How a Slave Would Change World History’ at The Counting House. Almost everyone has heard of Genghis Khan, but what do you really know about him? In all likelihood if you know anything you know about his conquests and wars, about the huge numbers of people he killed, or about the huge numbers he fathered. None of this is wrong but it isn’t the whole story, life is never this simple. He was a slave, his mother was kidnapped when he was a child. Later his first wife would be kidnapped. He would forge a deep friendship with the man he would eventually face in battle. He would through a combination of determination, genius and ruthlessness rise to power but he wasn’t a man driven by a lust to conquer alone. He was driven by a desire to change the world, not simply to rule it. He was also a monster who slaughtered his enemies without mercy. Read more…
