How to Govern Like a Mongol

At the peak of their success in 1259, the Mongol people numbered under a million, yet they ran an empire that covered a huge part of the world, including most of Russia, China, and Iran. And, as historians Paul D. Buell and Judith Kolbas write, they did it without abandoning their nomadic lifestyle.

The empire began on the Central Asian steppe, where small groups organized grazing rights based on complex kinship structures. The Mongols initially emerged as a confederation of smaller groups...