EE History Help

[adunham536]

My topic to my extended essay is "To what extent is the Mongolian Empire a peaceful society."

 

I'm going to make the argument that the Mongolian Empire was actually a peaceful society due to the Pax Mongolia, religious tolerance, etc. despite conquering nearly all of Eurasia through pillage and rape.

 

 

I would simply enjoy the knowledge if this topic is overdone, too broad, too specific, etc., or if I should change the specific topic name a little smidge.

 

Thanks everyone    

 

[alefal]

Hey there!

 

The framing of your essay seems contradictory to me. First of all, how can a society that violently invaded a number of countries be considered peaceful?

 

If you want to focus it so that you compare/contrast the international and the domestic, there are a few things you should consider. First of all, what is the intellectual problem, i.e. on what point(s) do the historians disagree (or, on what do you disagree with the literature)? Starting an analytical essay (in history nonetheless!) without defining an intellectual problem is like shooting yourself in the foot. Make sure you know exactly what the intellectual problem is and start from there. Secondly, the Mongol Empire lasted for a couple of centuries, with one of the khanates lasting in a reduced form till the 17th century or thereabouts. Are you going to look at the Mongol Empire for the entirety of its existence? Don't do that. Instead, focus on a specific period of time. As you've presented your essay, I'd say focus on about a decade - less if you can. You'd be able to write multiple books on this topic if you don't set a time period. Thirdly, reconsider the use of 'peaceful'. It's one of those buzzwords that has ended up meaning everything and nothing at the same time. Instead, identify different components of 'peacefulness' and focus on those. Alternatively, you could try to define, in your own words (i.e. not a dictionary definition), what 'peaceful' means in a paragraph in the start of the essay, but that could be a challenge with the word limit. Fourthly, are you only going to focus on Pax Mongolia and religious tolerance? If not, you need to be a bit wary, as you have only 4000 words. You're not supposed to write a book here. Lastly, have you done any research already? If no, do some preliminary research and see how many sources that are available. You don't want too many nor too few sources to be available - too many and you need to narrow your essay further, to few and you'll need to broaden it slightly/focus on different aspects. Make sure that you can write 4000 words of fully relevant and on-the-point words without being ambiguous nor leaving important things out. 

 

 

Good luck! 

[adunham536]

Thank you, i realized that the topic needed to be changed due to contradictory meaning. So a better version of this would be-

 

"Evaluate the harmonious nature of the Mongol Empire domestically versus the conquerous nature internationally under Genghis Khan."

 

 

I've narrowed down the timeframe to the rule of Genghis Khan. I'm still not to sure how to phrase the topic nor do I know if i should describe their actions in the topic specifically or if i should wait to introduce that in my paper.

 

I'm trying to make the argument that although Mongolians get a bad reputation due to their pillaging of villages that the empire was actually successful because they were cooperative and not as barbaric as most scholars depict them as I just still don't know how I'm supposed to phrase it

[jensa0051]

On 12/10/2014 at 11:04 PM, alefal said:

Hey there! 

I'm another student that is trying to have the mongolian empire as their EE topic but im having trouble finding the best time period of the mongolian empire to talk about what would u think is the best time period that should be used ? 

thank you