Onon Prize Lecture – Nicola Di Cosmo

From War to Peace in the Mongol Empire

Nicola Di Cosmo (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton)

In a famous retort to the first emperor of the Han Dynasty, the statesman Lu Jia said: “You can conquer an empire from horseback but can you rule from it?”.  When it comes to the states and dynasties established by mounted Inner Asian nomads, surely their founders faced a similar dilemma.  To explore this question in relation to the Mongol empire, the notion of pax mongolica can serve as a conceit to discuss how the Mongols moved from a regime of war to a regime of peace in the various states that emerged after the conquest.  What strategic and political choices were necessary for Mongol rulers to metaphorically descend from their horses, and how did both conquering and conquered societies participate in the transition to peace?  This talk aims to show that the study of “dismounted nomads” can illuminate critical aspects of Mongolian and Inner Asian history.