To the Last Sea

Batu's advance towards the west extends the Mongol campaigns into further lands and brings new communities within the reach of conquest. The ambition to continue towards the last sea gives the movement a vast geographical horizon. For those in its path, however, the meaning of that ambition is measured through immediate choices about survival, loyalty and resistance. Vasily Yan connects the decisions of commanders with the experiences of people living through the upheaval. Different customs and political interests complicate the course of events, while military power does not remove the uncertainty surrounding individual lives. The narrative follows expansion as both an organised project and a source of personal disruption. This historical novel explores the relationship between ambition and its human cost. As part of Yan's fiction about the Mongol conquests, it invites readers to consider how a large historical process can be imagined through encounters whose importance lies in what they demand of particular people.