The Mongol Empire: A Tale of Three Cities

Urban centers (cities) can serve as exemplars of significant historical developments during specific periods of world history. Baghdad and Córdoba, for example, embody the significance of medieval learning and cultural exchange during the Islamic Golden Age. Calicut, Quanzhou, and the cities of the Swahili Coast exemplify the role that trade cities played in the expansion of maritime trade and the cultural impact of the integration of Indian Ocean trade networks on port cities. Likewise, Florence and Amsterdam demonstrate the importance of the development of new financial and commercial practices and institutions in the emergence of early capitalist economies. Since ancient times, cities have served as conduits for goods and ideas both despite and because of the rise and fall of empires; and in the Late Middle Ages, cities across Eurasia experienced unprecedented devastation in the wake of the Mongol conquests. The development of the Mongol Empire was one of the watershed developments of the Middle Ages; and while historians have often focused on the Mongols' penchant for destruction, their capacity for trade and cultural adaptation helped usher in a new period of Eurasian connectivity of contact during the Pax Mongolica. While old cities like Baghdad transformed from a major economic and cultural center to a virtual backwater, others benefited from Mongol rule and emerged as major urban centers. Three case studies of Mongol cities—Beijing in the Yuan Dynasty, Tabriz in the Ilkhanate, and Sarai in the Golden Horde—provide insight not only into the transformation of these cities, but also into the wider transformations of Eurasia in the 13th and 14th centuries. 

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