John Man

John Man (born 15 May 1941) is a British historian and travel writer. His special interests are China, Mongolia, and the history of written communication After working in journalism with Reuters and in publishing with Time-Life Books, he turned to writing, with occasional forays into film, TV and radio. In the 1990s, he began a series on the revolutions in writing: writing itself, the alphabet and printing with movable type. This resulted in two books, Alpha Beta and The Gutenberg Revolution, both republished in 2009. He returned to the subject of Mongolia with Gobi: Tracking the Desert, the first book on the region since the 1920s. Work in Mongolia led to Genghis Khan: Life, Death and Resurrection, which has so far appeared in 21 languages. Attila the Hun and Kublai Khan: The Mongol King Who Remade China completed a trilogy on Asian leaders.