Kublai Khan

Kublai Khan recounts how a grandson of Genghis Khan became great khan and completed the Mongol conquest of China. John Man follows Kublai’s struggle with rival claimants, the defeat of the Southern Song, the foundation of the Yuan dynasty and the construction of capitals at Shangdu and Dadu. His government drew on Mongol, Chinese, Central Asian and other advisers while trying to rule an empire that stretched far beyond China.

The book also examines Kublai’s patronage, taxation, communications and religious policies, together with the failed invasions of Japan and campaigns in Southeast Asia. Marco Polo’s famous account provides one perspective on the court, but Man tests it against Chinese and Mongol evidence and the surviving landscapes of Kublai’s world, presenting a ruler who was both heir to a nomadic empire and architect of a new Chinese dynasty.