Bryn’s answer to “How much research went into the writing of your books? What sort of material did you use for your …” > Likes and Comments

+1 anthropology. Here's a tidbit from Sahlins' 1963 paper comparing Melanesian big-men and Polynesian chiefs that seemed to clarify the Mongol pre-imperial political structure for me:

"Especially emerging from their juxtaposition is the more decisive impact of Polynesian chiefs on the economy, the chiefs' greater leverage on the output of the several households of society. *The success of any primitive political organization is decided here, in the control that can be developed over household economies. For the household is not merely the principal productive unit in primitive societies, it is often quite capable of autonomous direction of its own production, and it is oriented towards production for its own, not societal consumption.* The greater potential of Polynesian chieftainship is precisely the greater pressure it could exert on household output, its capacity both to generate a surplus and to deploy it out of the household towards a broader division of labor, cooperative construction, and massive ceremonial and military action."

(Marshall D. Sahlins, "Poor Man, Rich Man, Big-Man, Chief: Political Types in Melanesia and Polynesia" in Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Apr., 1963), pp. 285-303: http://www.jstor.org/stable/177650.)

Ethnography often seems so much safer than history in terms of the reliability of observations.

Agree with what you say, Ahmed. I've found ethnography, on other societies, the only possible way to figure out pre-imperial Mongol society or politics, by analogy. 'Melanesian big-men and Polynesian chiefs' : an example I've found enlightening too -- I think I've read discussions of Sahlins' work rather than him himself, so thanks for the reference.

I love digital sources too. Being a poor reader of serious stuff, I tend to listen to a lot of factual books and watch a lot of YouTube videos.