Scholars acquainted with the seminal masterpiece of Mongolian literature and history have long wished for an English translation that is “(a) unabridged and faithful; (b) in readable English; (c) adequately but not excessively annotated; (d) provided with an informative introduction; and, last but not least, (e) available as a reasonably priced book.”1 As the first person to complete the checklist that he himself aired over two decades ago, Christopher P. Atwood has produced a landmark translation of the text of the Secret History of the Mongols supported by a generous array of expert elucidations.
Composed by an unknown author in the thirteenth century in the Middle Mongolian language and intended as the private family narrative of the life and early posterity of Chinggis Khan (1162?–1227), the lost original text has been precisely reconstructed based on a Ming-era phonetic transcription...
