“...Ciocîltan distils with enviable dexterity material from a great many primary sources in Arabic, Persian, Latin, Italian, and a wide range of secondary literature, a significant proportion of it in Romanian and hence largely inaccessible to Western European readers. His insights into the economic policies of Mongol rulers (and their failures) are well sustained; and his reconstructions of the many episodes that our sources merely seem to obfuscate – particularly in the context of the Horde’s relations with the Genoese and Venetians – are consistently persuasive... We have good reason to be grateful that the author’s thesis has at last appeared in print in English.”
Peter Jackson, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Volume 77 / Issue 01 / February 2014, pp.244 - 246

“Bubbling with fascinating detail and sustained by solid scholarship, Ciociltan’s work has an important place in the literature on the Black Sea under Mongol rule, medieval Mediterranean history, and indeed world history. That it can be appreciated by a specialist as well as the general reader is an additional merit.”
Nicola Di Cosmo, Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi 19 (2012), pp. 303-305

"…the extensive footnoting displays the author’s knowledge of numerous languages and his study’s thorough grounding in the primary source ….this English translation of Ciociltan’s monograph is a welcome addition to the study of the Mongol-Tatars in the western Eurasian steppe area and to our appreciation of the importance of trade for the Mongol empire."
Donald Ostrowski, Slavic Review, Vol. 73, No. 1 (Spring 2014), pp. 191-192