A hard childhood

Genghis Khan was born Temujin on the Mongolian steppe around 1162. When he was a boy, his father was poisoned by enemies, and his family was abandoned by their clan to survive alone.

Jack Weatherford draws on The Secret History of the Mongols, an early Mongol account, and on his own travels in Mongolia. Temujin faced hunger, capture and constant danger, but he learned to win loyal friends and allies. As a youth he killed his half-brother Begter in a quarrel, and he was once captured by a rival clan but escaped.