Part 3: The Myth of Mongol Mercy — Build, Burn, Repeat (Unfiltered Edition)

History is messy. Brutal. Manipulated. And weaponized.
This episode rips the veil off the sanitized myths around Mongol “mercy” and the bullshit idea that empires destroy to heal. If you’re gonna spit truth, you better bring receipts.

Below is a curated list of books, journals, firsthand accounts, investigative journalism, and academic heavyweights that informed this episode. These sources aren’t here to polish history—they’re here to gut it open, analyze the organs, and scream at the bloody legacy we’re still choking on.

From Genghis Khan’s scorched-earth policies to modern dark money, from the burning of Baghdad to the bleaching of U.S. textbooks—this bibliography is your blueprint to go deeper.

Historical Sources:

• Allsen, Thomas T. Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia. Cambridge University Press, 2001.

• Barfield, Thomas. The Mongols and the Islamic World: From Conquest to Conversion. Yale University Press, 2017.

• Boyle, J. A. The History of the World-Conqueror. Translated by J. A. Boyle, Harvard University Press, 1958.

• Grousset, René. The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia. Translated by Naomi Walford, Rutgers University Press, 1970.

• Jackson, Peter. The Mongols and the Islamic World: From Conquest to Conversion. Yale University Press, 2017.

• Morgan, David. The Mongols. 2nd ed., Wiley-Blackwell, 2007.

• Ratchnevsky, Paul. Genghis Khan: His Life and Legacy. Translated by Thomas Nivison Haining, Blackwell, 1991.

• Weatherford, Jack. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. Crown, 2004.

Modern Analyses and Comparisons:

• Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Verso, 2006.

• Chomsky, Noam. Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance. Metropolitan Books, 2003.

• Davis, Mike. Planet of Slums. Verso, 2006.

• Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan, Vintage Books, 1995.

• Klein, Naomi. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Metropolitan Books, 2007.

• Said, Edward W. Orientalism. Pantheon Books, 1978.

• Zuboff, Shoshana. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. PublicAffairs, 2019.

Contemporary Issues and Events:

• Amnesty International. USA: 'You Don't Have Any Rights Here' - Illegal Pushbacks, Arbitrary Detention & Ill-Treatment of Asylum-Seekers in the United States. Amnesty International, 2018.

• Human Rights Watch. World Report 2022: Events of 2021. Seven Stories Press, 2022.

• United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Report on the Human Rights Situation in Ukraine. United Nations, 2022.

• U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Office of Inspector General Report: Concerns about ICE Detainee Treatment and Care at Four Detention Facilities. U.S. Government Publishing Office, 2019.

Academic Journals and Articles:

• Burbank, Jane, and Frederick Cooper. "Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference." Princeton University Press, 2010.

• Ferguson, Niall. "Empires with Expiration Dates." Foreign Policy, no. 188, 2011, pp. 46–53.

• Mann, Michael. "The Autonomous Power of the State: Its Origins, Mechanisms and Results." European Journal of Sociology, vol. 25, no. 2, 1984, pp. 185–213.

• Tilly, Charles. "War Making and State Making as O