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What these people are doing, however, isn’t theory - it’s obscurantism, the denial of facts apparent at first glance.

Generations of historians' work lies behind what I referenced. Now you come along and throw all that into the weeds all by yourself. This has gotten entirely too "woke" for me.

[Generations of historians’ work lies behind what I referenced. Now you come along and throw all that into the weeds all by yourself. This has gotten entirely too “woke” for me.]

You’re entirely too married to narrative. You don’t need to rely on narratives any more. You can find out about events as they actually happened and see if the narratives match up. I read the same things you did and took them as gospel. Then I looked at the events themselves and discovered that the narratives were nonsensical.

If the Khan’s authority was so overweening and his underlings were so submissive, why did so many Mongol civil wars occur? Why did so many rank and file Mongols throw in their lot with their commanders to rise against the Khan if they loved him so much? And why did Mongol commanders in charge of Muslim territories convert to Islam if the reigning Khan was, in their minds, a living God?

History isn’t an esoteric and abstruse thing like math and sciences where you need serious intellectual horsepower or it’s beyond your ken. The more I read of this stuff, the more contempt I have for the academics who come up with this baloney. What they’re saying, vs actual events, is like hearing that Roman slaves were happy and healthy, then hearing about the three Servile Wars.