The Secret History of The Mongols & Other Works

History Book

Actually, to be fair, the weakest version is the one Waley praises by Cleaves in his prologue; so, 2nd weakest. This book is a compilation of the poems, articles, and translations of Arthur Waley, a Chinese & Japanese language scholar who also translated The Tale of Genji. Before you buy this book I suggest you Search Inside and check out the table of contents, because Waley's The Secret History (TSH) only involves pages 231-329. Because of this I feel the title of the book "The Secret History of the Mongols: A Saga of Epic Battles, Betrayal, Love, Tyrants, and Prisoners in Ancient China" is poorly chosen, hence my 3-stars. The title implies that TSH is the focus, when in fact the focus is on the works of Mr. Waley, of which TSH was but one. I personally have little interest in his other work, so my review focuses on the 98-pages (out of 355) dealing with TSH, and I do apologize if you were looking for information on the rest. If you have a basic interest in reading TSH, the version by Paul Kahn is both affordable and more than adequate, and is written in the original poetic. If you are looking for a more in depth study of this subject, then without a doubt I would recommend the 2-vol set by Igor de Rachewiltz as the definitive study. Aside from all the extraneous works in this version, there is another issue potential buyers should be aware of: it is not the complete TSH, it is only excerpts. It is also not in the "original" form, which was prose, but rather a translated version that only recounts the story-tellers' tales. For some, especially people who just want the gist of the story, Waley's translation will likely be more readable and user-friendly, which was his intention when he wrote it, but for the purist it simply won't do. With regards to this aspect, Waley does a good job as he referenced both the Chinese and Mongolian versions for his translation.

I can’t read this book because the pages were cut incorrectly and there are partial letters at the top of the page. The printer did not center the book correctly.

I bought this book in hopes to have a written references to the secret history of the mongols (before noticing there were some reviews on amazon.com), that I could refer myself to. I wanted something not too expensive, and that I could afford to work with and understand. As a medievalist, especially interested in recreation (in my case, of mongol culture), it has been a disappointment. As another reviewer said, The secret History is just one of the works that the author worked on for this book, and I honestly feel misguided by the title of this book. To me, it should have been named "Arthur Waley's works on asian legends and epics". If what you are looking for is an easy reference to get a feel of what was going on in the secret history, this book will fit the bill. But anything more than that, I'd say avoid this book.

This book was a gift for my husband. He loved it.

Perfect condition, present for father who enjoys reading about this period of history

This book was not a all what I expected, there was a number of ramblings from the author( that had nothing to do with what should have been the main topic. the translation of the text while good did not follow the complete history of the mongols and stopped suddenly. yje author then went on to other poems and stories that did not interest me in the least.

This was a good complement to the other books about the Mongols I read before. The poetry section was not so much to my liking.