Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 344 pages
• Published by: University of California Press August 21, 1989
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0520067401
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0520067400
• Book Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Weighs: 15.2 ounces

From Library Journal
In this highly readable biography Rossabi confines himself to historical sources to provide a fascinating life of this great ruler. Although Khubilai acquired the title of Great Khan, the Mongol empire of the 1250s already had broken into four segments, with Khubilai ruling North China. His greatest success came when he was over sixty with the conquest of the southern Sung dynasty. In the last years of his life, however, he suffered from personal tragedies, obesity, alcoholism, and military reverses. Still, Khubilai ruled "the largest and most populous empire in the history of the world until that time." Recommended for most libraries. History Book Club main selection. David D. Buck, Univ. of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Review
"Khubilai Khan is much more than a biography. It is a comprehensive treatment of the cultural and political dimensions of the 13th century in both China and Central Asia." -- Pamela Kyle Crossley, The New Republic

"Morris Rossabi has written this impressive biography for scholarly use, but he does not neglect the casual reader. He brings Khubilai and his era to life with myriad details, providing an ironic portrait of an invader conquered by his own conquest." -- Amanda Heller, The Boston Globe

"[Khubilai Khan] will probably stand for many years as the best account of Khubilai available. . . . Rossabi, his scholarship a patient accretion of details, provides us with a fascinating portrait of a restless nomad chieftain seen mainly through the eyes of the sedentary populations over which he ruled." -- T.H. Barrett, London Review of Books

Reader Reviews
OK, so maybe Morris Rossabi was right not to speak of this great Khan as "a most excellent barbarian" as if he emerged from some "sandal and Vandal" Hollywood epic. But, this historical figure lived amidst some of the most colorful, interesting times (not to mention extremely bloody ones). A little more pizzazz could have livened up the biography of an undoubtedly important character in world history. Rossabi's book is competent, it is scholarly, it is well-organized, it is impressively wide-reaching in its use of English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Chinese, and Japanese sources (and the author seems to have some knowledge of Mongol and Tibetan too). Nobody could fault such a book for incompleteness. Certainly I am not qualified to spot any inaccuracies. We learn the antecedents of Khubilai Khan, how he emerged from the welter of contestants for the top job, how he organized the bureaucracy, picked his advisors, dealt with the various religions and their factions, how he conquered the Southern Sung (rulers of 50 million Chinese), how he became a patron of the arts, and how he tried and failed to conquer Burma, Vietnam, and Japan. On finishing the book, I felt sure that I had read most of the available information on Khubilai Khan. But....I would have liked some insights, which I believe Dr. Rossabi could have provided. Where can we place Khubilai Khan in the long history of struggle between nomad and sedentary farmer in North Asia ? How did he stack up against previous and later rulers ? What were the results of the various policies he followed and were they very different from what the Chinese had done ? And ? Well, I might not be able to come up with many more possible themes like this, but I would have enjoyed some questions and answers, to be shown a broader picture. Still, if you need a book on the life of Khubilai Khan which is clearly written and avoids jargon---though the author does tend to insert a few too many Mongol and Chinese terms which are useless to lay readers---you could do worse than obtain this volume, probably the premier work on the subject in English.