Khubilai’s Lost Fleet
Posted: July 17th, 2009 | No Comments »
Earlier this year I read James Delgado’s new book Khubilai Kahn’s Lost Fleet: In Search of a Legendary Armada. It’s the story (which I’m sure China Rhyming readers know) of Khubilai’s disastorous attempt to attack Japan by sea using sailors and ships from China and Korea. Legend had it that a divine wind, or kamikaze, sunk the fleet – the weather didn’t help but it was also about bad planning, poorly built or patched up ships and Khubilai’s heart not being in it anymore. I had worried slightly that Delgado, a marine archeologist who hadn’t really written about Asian history before, might screw it up but it’s a great read.
Anyway, turns out Delgado is a fantastic raconteur too as I heard on ABC Radio National’s (Australia) The Book Show where he had a long discussion about the book with host Ramona Koval (BTW: The Book Show and Koval are invariably excellent – you can download the show and subscribe on iTunes). Anyway, The Book Show people also rather handily archive their shows so if you missed it you can listen by clicking here to the audio link.
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