Post by Leoma Monaheng

To expose the deep-seated bias of the historical record, we only need to look at how global historiography treats the conquerors of the Global North versus those of the Global South. Consider Julius Caesar. During the Gallic Wars (58–50 BCE), Caesar’s legions were responsible for the systematic slaughter of an estimated 1 million Gauls and the enslavement of another 1 million (Plutarch, Life of Caesar; Appian, Roman History). Modern demographic analyses indicate that Caesar’s campaigns decimated between 16% and 25% of the entire population of Gaul (Raaflaub, 2021). Proportional to the global population at the time, this ranks among the most devastating campaigns of state-sponsored mass violence in human history. Yet, Western literature elevates Caesar as a brilliant statesman, a master of Latin prose, and a foundational pillar of Western civilization. Now consider Genghis Khan. While the Mongol conquests resulted in massive casualties across Eurasia, historical records—including the Mongol legal code, the Yassa—show that Khan’s empire established absolute religious freedom, protected diplomatic immunity, institutionalized meritocracy over aristocratic birth, and created systemic social welfare systems that exempted the poor, teachers, and doctors from taxation (Weatherford, 2004). These are structural inclusions that many modern societies would deem ideal today. Yet, in global memory, Khan is denied any political nuance and granted the singular, caricatured role of an uncultured, bloodthirsty tyrant.