Kubla Khan: The Emperor of Everything (review)

Mongolian warlord Genghis Khan was a hard act to follow, but his grandson Kubla would do him proud. Krull portrays him here as both conqueror, ruthless toward resisters, and nation-builder, willing to incorporate the best of the culture of the vanquished. Skimming past family infighting and resentment among some fellow Mongols over Kubla's affinity to Chinese culture, Krull instead focuses on the accomplishments of Kubla's short-lived Yuan dynasty in the areas of public works, expanded education, scholarship, trade, foreign relations, and communications. The renowned opulence of Kubla's court offers Byrd ample opportunity to revel in extravagant detail. With a paucity of thirteenth and fourteenth-century Mongolian pictorial sources, he turns to historical Chinese images and contemporary Mongolian design to render Kubla's world. Minutely detailed line-and-watercolor scenes of court life tend to be formal and stylized, while landscapes conform to westernized conventions of perspective; together, the two approaches reflect the cultural tolerance that distinguished Yuan rule. Krull hastily concludes her text with a perfunctory list of connections between various elements of "the great age of European exploration" that followed rather than outlining the regional impact of his dynasty, which lends a rather Euro-centric finish to the enterprise, but that's a deviation in a solid introductory biography that otherwise is clear that the Mongols' story isn't all about us. Sources and maps are included.