For Immediate Release Contact: Barbara K. Laskin
April 7, 2004 Doug Stone
(651) 696-6203

Macalester Professor's Book about Genghis Khan on
New York Times Best-Sellers List Sunday, April 11, 2004

St. Paul, Minn - Jack Weatherford's new book, Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World (Crown Publishers, March 23, 2004; $25.00/hardcover), will be on the New York Times Best-Sellers List for nonfiction hardcover this Sunday, April 11, 2004. The book is already in its second printing.
The Macalester College Anthropology professor spent more than seven years researching and traveling throughout Asia to uncover the true history of this mythic figure. However, it was the end of the Soviet occupation of Mongolia in the 1990s that allowed Weatherford (one of the first Westerners) and a group of Mongolian scholars to enter the forbidden zone of Genghis Khan's childhood and burial ground-an expanse of land that was impenetrable for nearly eight centuries.

According to Weatherford, Genghis Khan was the first ruler to understand the benefits of a laissez-faire style of imperial rule, who put the power of law above his own power, encouraged religious freedom, created public schools, granted diplomatic immunity, abolished torture and instituted free trade. Genghis Khan's dynasty introduced the first international paper currency and postal system and developed and spread revolutionary technologies like printing, the cannon, compass, and abacus. Genghis Khan, together with his sons and grandsons, conquered the most densely populated civilizations of the thirteenth century that stretched from Siberia to India, from Vietnam to Hungary, and from Korea to Iraq -an empire that covered some12 million square miles. And yet, his approach was simple: submit to his rule, or suffer the consequences of an unforgiving display of military might.
Weatherford is the DeWitt Wallace Professor of Anthropology at Macalester College and an honorary doctor of the Chinggis Khaan College in Mongolia. He is a specialist in tribal people and the author of Indian Givers, Native Roots, Savages and Civilizations, and the History of Money.

Macalester is a private liberal arts college with a full-time enrollment of 1,810 students. Macalester is nationally recognized for its commitment to academic excellence, internationalism, diversity and service to society.

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