Academic Bio
Michael J. Bechtel is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago studying under the direction of Professor John E. Woods. His prior education was completed at Truman State University, where he studied medieval European and East Asian history, and at the University of Chicago’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies. He is an historian of medieval and premodern Central Eurasia with particular interests in the Mongol Empire, the history of gunpowder and gunpowder weapons, networks of exchange and the waning of nomadic military elite.