The Crossroads of Eurasia: The Golden Horde and Steppe Order

The Mongol westward campaigns opened a striking chapter in world history, but their end was little more than a fading echo. In the sixteenth century, the Golden Horde, which had ruled Central Asia, the Caucasus, Crimea, and the middle and lower Volga for nearly three centuries, quietly disappeared. Mongol rule in the West soon faded into the darkness of history. Drawing on scattered sources, including decrees of the khans, diplomatic letters, coins, trade manuals, and steppe epics, the author reconstructs the history of the Golden Horde and its interactions with the surrounding world, revealing the role it played in the Eurasian political landscape of the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries. Breaking with the traditional narrative of steppe regimes as