Kublai Khan

Name: Fantastic book
Item: Kublai Khan
Rating: 5
Author: Thriftbooks.com User

by John Man

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Book Overview

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree

Kublai Khan lives on in the popular imagination thanks to these two lines of poetry by Coleridge. But the true story behind this legend is even more fantastic than the poem would have us believe. He inherited the second largest land empire in history from his grandfather, Genghis Khan. He promptly set about extending this into the biggest empire the world has ever seen, extending his rule from China to Iraq, from Siberia to Afghanistan. His personal domain covered sixty-percent of all Asia, and one-fifth of the world's land area.

The West first learnt of this great Khan through the reports of Marco Polo. Kublai had not been born to rule, but had clawed his way to leadership, achieving power only in his 40s. He had inherited Genghis Khan's great dream of world domination. But unlike his grandfather he saw China and not Mongolia as the key to controlling power and turned Genghis' unwieldy empire into a federation. Using China's great wealth, coupled with his shrewd and subtle government, he created an empire that was the greatest since the fall of Rome, and shaped the modern world as we know it today. He gave China its modern-day borders and his legacy is that country's resurgence, and the superpower China of tomorrow.

Format:Paperback

Language:English

ISBN:0553817183

ISBN13:9780553817188

Release Date:March 2007

Publisher:Transworld Publishers

Length:480 Pages

Weight:0.70 lbs.

Dimensions:1.0" x 5.0" x 7.8"

Related Subjects

Biographical Biographies Biographies & History Biography & History History

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Fantastic book

Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 15 years ago

I'm almost finished this book in less than a week and I have enjoyed every page. It is a fascinating story and brilliantly written. Not knowing a thing about Kublai Khan it was very satisfying to learn about the completion of the Mongol conquests of Central Asia, the Middle East and China, with the final debacle in Japan. The book reads like an adventure novel with mind bogglingly vast distances and numbers of people involved. Learning about the history of many countries there is often reference to the Mongols, so to read about it from their perspective really fills out the picture. There are many vignettes which give a personal insight into the characters involved in these exploits and Man sometimes describes sites, such as the ruins of Xanadu, as they are today. I thoroughly recommend this wonderful book to any reader

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Kublai Khan

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