
Emperor of the Seas
Kublai Khan and the Making of China
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Narrated by:
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Mark Elstob
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By:
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Jack Weatherford
About this listen
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.
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Story
Favereau takes us inside one of the most powerful sources of cross-border integration in world history. The Horde was the central node in the Eurasian commercial boom of the 13th and 14th centuries and was a conduit for exchanges across thousands of miles. Its unique political regime - a complex power-sharing arrangement among the khan and the nobility - rewarded skillful administrators and diplomats and fostered an economic order that was mobile, organized, and innovative.
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Golden Horde complete history, well done
- By Amazon Customer on 03-10-22
By: Marie Favereau
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The Water Margin
- Outlaws of the Marsh
- By: Shi Naian, J. H. Jackson - translator, Edwin Lowe - translator
- Narrated by: Jonathan Booth
- Length: 33 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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The Water Margin is one of the most popular classics of early Chinese literature. It tells the vigorous story of 108 characters who, falling foul of the established state authorities, are forced to become outlaws. They form a bandit community in Liangshan Marsh, becoming such a formidable force in their own right that they threaten the power of government itself.
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Exciting! Each story entwined with one another!
- By Kananai on 04-03-24
By: Shi Naian, and others
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Battle for the Island Kingdom
- England's Destiny 1000-1066
- By: Don Hollway
- Narrated by: John Sackville
- Length: 15 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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In a saga reminiscent of Game of Thrones and The Last Kingdom, Battle for the Island Kingdom reveals the life-and-death struggle for power which changed the course of history. The six decades leading up to 1066 were defined by bloody wars and intrigues, in which three peoples vied for supremacy over the island kingdom. In this epic retelling, Don Hollway (The Last Viking) recounts the clashes of Vikings, Anglo-Saxons and Normans, their warlords and their conniving queens.
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Wonderfully told
- By Matt on 08-03-24
By: Don Hollway
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India
- A History
- By: John Keay
- Narrated by: Mike Fraser
- Length: 33 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Fully revised with forty thousand new words that take the listener up to present-day India, John Keay’s India: A History spans five millennia in a sweeping narrative that tells the story of the peoples of the subcontinent, from their ancient beginnings in the valley of the Indus to the events in the region today.
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The Best book on India I've ever read or listened to
- By djay on 10-03-24
By: John Keay
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The Great Transformation
- China’s Road from Revolution to Reform
- By: Chen Jian, Odd Arne Westad
- Narrated by: Feodor Chin
- Length: 14 hrs
- Unabridged
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Odd Arne Westad and Chen Jian chronicle how an impoverished and terrorized China experienced radical political changes in the long 1970s and how ordinary people broke free from the beliefs that had shaped their lives during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. These changes, and the unprecedented and sustained economic growth that followed, transformed China and the world.
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Excellent history but the narration’s mispronunciation takes away from the story
- By Anonymous User on 04-19-25
By: Chen Jian, and others
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Conquistadors and Aztecs
- A History of the Fall of Tenochtitlan
- By: Stefan Rinke, Christopher Reid
- Narrated by: Luis Moreno
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Written by a leading historian of Latin America, Conquistadors and Aztecs offers a timely portrayal of the fall of Tenochtitlan and the founding of an empire that would last for centuries.
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Gold and Death
- By Rebecca Hill on 09-13-23
By: Stefan Rinke, and others
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The Path to Blitzkrieg
- Doctrine and Training in the German Army, 1920 - 1939
- By: Robert M. Citino
- Narrated by: Mark Ashby
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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In the wake of World War I, the German army lay in ruins - defeated in the war, sundered by domestic upheaval, and punished by the Treaty of Versailles. A mere 20 years later, Germany possessed one of the finest military machines in the world, capable of launching a stunning blitzkrieg attack against Poland in 1939. Well-known military historian Robert M. Citino shows how Germany accomplished this astonishing reversal and developed the doctrine, tactics, and technologies that its military would use to devastating effect in World War II.
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Thorough review of Reichswehr in Weimar years
- By Rodney W. Schmisseur on 06-19-24
By: Robert M. Citino
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Agincourt
- Battle of the Scarred King
- By: Dr Michael Livingston, Bernard Cornwell - foreword
- Narrated by: Rupert Farley
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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King Henry V’s victory over the French armies at Agincourt on 25 October 1415 is unquestionably one of the most famous battles in history. From Shakespeare’s ‘band of brothers’ speech to its appearances in numerous films, Agincourt rightfully has a place among a handful of conflicts whose names are immediately recognized around the world. Agincourt provides a new look at this battle. Mike Livingston goes back to the original sources, including the French battle plan that still survives today, to give a new interpretation, one that challenges the traditional site of the battlefield itself.
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Well researched history
- By J. Johansson on 05-22-25
By: Dr Michael Livingston, and others
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The King in the North
- The Life and Times of Oswald of Northumbria
- By: Max Adams
- Narrated by: Hamilton McLeod
- Length: 15 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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A charismatic leader, a warrior whose prowess in battle earned him the epithet Whiteblade, an exiled prince who returned to claim his birthright, the inspiration for Tolkein's Aragorn: Oswald of Northumbria was the first great English monarch, yet today this legendary figure is all but forgotten. In this panoramic portrait of Dark Age Britain, archaeologist and biographer Max Adams returns the king in the North to his rightful place in history.
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Fascinating
- By Wendy on 02-14-25
By: Max Adams
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