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Historical person
1215–1294
Kublai Khan was a grandson of Genghis Khan who became great khan after defeating his brother Ariq Böke and founded the Yuan dynasty in China. He completed the conquest of the Southern Song, established his capital at Dadu and adopted Chinese administrative practices while preserving Mongol privilege.
His reign expanded trade and cultural exchange but also launched costly and unsuccessful invasions of Japan, Vietnam and Java. Kublai Khan was born in Mongol Empire and died in Khanbaliq.
Conn Iggulden’s Conqueror follows Kublai Khan from scholarly prince to commander and claimant to the great khanate, culminating in his struggle with Ariq Böke and the conquest that will underpin the Yuan dynasty. Gary Jennings’ The Journeyer makes Kublai’s court the great eastern destination of Marco Polo’s fictionalised travels and depicts the Venetian as an observer of Yuan government. John Man’s Kublai Khan reconstructs the ruler directly, covering the Southern Song conquest, administration, religious policy and failed invasions of Japan. Man’s The Mongol Empire places Kublai at the culmination of the wider imperial expansion begun by Genghis Khan and explains how family rivalry divided that empire into successor states. Xanadu approaches Kublai through Marco Polo and Shangdu, testing the traveller’s account against the routes, archaeology and textual evidence of the Mongol world.
Series
The Conqueror series traces the rise of Temujin as Genghis Khan and the expansion of the Mongol Empire under his descendants. Across five novels it follows tribal unification, campaigns in China and Central Asia, the invasion of eastern Europe and the succession struggles that eventually bring Kublai Khan…
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The two-volume Shike saga follows Jebu, a warrior-monk of the secretive Order of Zinja, and Shima Taniko, a noblewoman whose arranged marriage places her inside the politics of the imperial court. Their love develops during the struggle between the fictional Takashi and Muratomo clans, counterparts of the historical…
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Epic Historical Adventure is Colin Falconer's publisher-defined collection of stand-alone historical thrillers rather than a continuous narrative sequence. The novels range from Alexander the Great, Cleopatra and the Mongol Empire to the Ottoman court, the conquest of Mexico, colonial India, shipwreck and twentieth-century Palestine. Most volumes can be…
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The William Falconer mysteries follow a Regent Master at the early University of Oxford between 1261 and 1275. Falconer approaches murder through observation, logic and experiment at a time when natural philosophy, Aristotelian teaching and church authority are contested. His cases involve students, clerics, royal officials, theatrical companies,…
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The Nick Zuliani mysteries follow a Venetian trader and adventurer who enters the service of Kublai Khan in the 1260s. Far from Venice, Nick uses commercial experience, languages, improvisation and deception to investigate crimes across the Mongol Empire. The series combines murder investigation with travel through the Pax…
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Standalone books
Non Fiction
Biographies, histories and other non-fiction are listed separately from the historical novels above.
