Emperor of the Seas

Kublai Khan and the Making of China

By: Jack Weatherford

Narrated by: Mark Elstob

Bloomsbury presents… Emperor of the Seas: Kublai Khan and the Making of China by Jack Weatherford, read by Mark Elstob

Control the sea, and you control everything...a gripping tale of naval warfare, dynastic rivalry, and technical innovation, from the author of the classic work Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World.

Genghis Khan built a formidable land empire, but he never crossed the sea. Yet by the time his grandson Kublai Khan had defeated the last vestiges of the Song empire and established the Yuan dynasty in 1279, the Mongols controlled the most powerful navy in the world. How did a nomad come to conquer China and master the sea? Based on ten years of research and a lifetime of immersion in Mongol culture and tradition, Emperor of the Seas brings this little-known story vibrantly to life.

Kublai Khan is one of history’s most fascinating characters. He brought Islamic mathematicians to his court, where they invented modern cartography and celestial measurement. He transformed the world’s largest land mass into a unified, diverse and economically progressive empire, introducing paper money. And, after bitter early setbacks, he transformed China into an outward looking sea-faring empire.

By the end of his reign, the Chinese were building and supplying remarkable ships to transport men, grain, and weapons over vast distances, of a size and dexterity that would be inconceivable in Europe for hundreds of years. Khan had come to a brilliant realization: control the sea, and you control everything.

A master storyteller with an unparalleled grasp of Mongol sources, Jack Weatherford shows how Chinese naval hegemony changed the world forever - revolutionizing world commerce and transforming tastes as far away as England and France.

©2024 Jack Weatherford (P)2024 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Critic reviews

Astonishing...brings to life the smells and tastes of distant lands (Daniel Brooks)

Jack Weatherford, an anthropologist and specialist in Mongol history, is an informed and lively guide to this extraordinary transformation. (Michael Prodger, the New Staesman)

sparkles with energy, insight and passion... difficult to put down. (Nicholas Morton, BBC History Magazine)

Weatherford puts Kublai’s accomplishments in full context, following up with a summary of China’s maritime history right up to the present day. Readers will find this a valuable treatment of a part of history previously familiar primarily to specialists.
A detailed look at one of history’s most powerful rulers, and his impact on a huge swath of the world. (Kirkus Reviews)

His life and accomplishments are utterly compelling, and Jack Weatherford does full justice to how Kublai Khan transformed China and world commerce centuries before Europe mastered the sea. (Jim Kelly, Air Mail)

Awesome

I really enjoyed this book and as usual the author consistently surpasses my expectations. I learned greatly from this book and I highly recommend it

Meh!

Where to begin?
I guess let's start with the title, which is highly inaccurate. yes, they did talk about the seas.And how kubli Khan built his navy, however this was more about the creation of the Yuan dynasty than it was about being an empire on the seas.
On top of that, you go through this whole creation of Yuan China just to end it off with "capitalism bad" and the "west didn't learn anything" but if the author actually knew anything beyond his hate for capitalism, he would realize that today's world was created in almost the same manner as the Yuan dynasty towards the end. After World War 2 America wanted trade to be the primary concern of the world, and just like Kubli Khans successors, corruption took over and ruined the desired goal.