The authoritative biography of the great Mongol ruler, by the author of
Genghis Khan and Attila.
"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.
Kublai Khan inherited the second largest land empire in history from his
grandfather, Genghis Khan, and which he extended further, creating the
biggest empire the world has ever seen; 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 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's
unwieldy empire into a federation. Using China's great wealth, coupled
with his shrewd and subtle governance, 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.
