diff --git a/configure b/configure
index cefeb8fcce4..47bf617fcc5 100755
--- a/configure
+++ b/configure
@@ -4589,13 +4589,24 @@ if compile_prog "" "" ; then
   syncfs=yes
 fi
 
+# Check we have a new enough version of sphinx-build
+has_sphinx_build() {
+    # This is a bit awkward but works: create a trivial document and
+    # try to run it with our configuration file (which enforces a
+    # version requirement). This will fail if either
+    # sphinx-build doesn't exist at all or if it is too old.
+    mkdir -p "$TMPDIR1/sphinx"
+    touch "$TMPDIR1/sphinx/index.rst"
+    sphinx-build -c "$source_path/docs" -b html "$TMPDIR1/sphinx" "$TMPDIR1/sphinx/out" >/dev/null 2>&1
+}
+
 # Check if tools are available to build documentation.
 if test "$docs" != "no" ; then
-  if has makeinfo && has pod2man; then
+  if has makeinfo && has pod2man && has_sphinx_build; then
     docs=yes
   else
     if test "$docs" = "yes" ; then
-      feature_not_found "docs" "Install texinfo and Perl/perl-podlators"
+      feature_not_found "docs" "Install texinfo, Perl/perl-podlators and python-sphinx"
     fi
     docs=no
   fi
diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 2208bde4196..add22cf2947 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -388,7 +388,7 @@ dummy := $(call unnest-vars,, \
 
 include $(SRC_PATH)/tests/Makefile.include
 
-all: $(DOCS) $(TOOLS) $(HELPERS-y) recurse-all modules
+all: $(DOCS) $(if $(BUILD_DOCS),sphinxdocs) $(TOOLS) $(HELPERS-y) recurse-all modules
 
 qemu-version.h: FORCE
 	$(call quiet-command, \
@@ -637,6 +637,14 @@ dist: qemu-$(VERSION).tar.bz2
 qemu-%.tar.bz2:
 	$(SRC_PATH)/scripts/make-release "$(SRC_PATH)" "$(patsubst qemu-%.tar.bz2,%,$@)"
 
+# Note that these commands assume that there are no HTML files in
+# the docs subdir in the source tree! If there are then this will
+# blow them away for an in-source-tree 'make clean'.
+define clean-manual =
+rm -rf docs/$1/_static
+rm -f docs/$1/objects.inv docs/$1/searchindex.js docs/$1/*.html
+endef
+
 distclean: clean
 	rm -f config-host.mak config-host.h* config-host.ld $(DOCS) qemu-options.texi qemu-img-cmds.texi qemu-monitor.texi qemu-monitor-info.texi
 	rm -f config-all-devices.mak config-all-disas.mak config.status
@@ -657,6 +665,9 @@ distclean: clean
 	rm -f docs/interop/qemu-qmp-ref.html docs/interop/qemu-ga-ref.html
 	rm -f docs/qemu-block-drivers.7
 	rm -f docs/qemu-cpu-models.7
+	rm -f .doctrees
+	$(call clean-manual,devel)
+	$(call clean-manual,interop)
 	for d in $(TARGET_DIRS); do \
 	rm -rf $$d || exit 1 ; \
         done
@@ -690,7 +701,18 @@ else
 BLOBS=
 endif
 
-install-doc: $(DOCS)
+define install-manual =
+for d in $$(cd docs && find $1 -type d); do $(INSTALL_DIR) "$(DESTDIR)$(qemu_docdir)/$$d"; done
+for f in $$(cd docs && find $1 -type f); do $(INSTALL_DATA) "docs/$$f" "$(DESTDIR)$(qemu_docdir)/$$f"; done
+endef
+
+# Note that we deliberately do not install the "devel" manual: it is
+# for QEMU developers, and not interesting to our users.
+.PHONY: install-sphinxdocs
+install-sphinxdocs: sphinxdocs
+	$(call install-manual,interop)
+
+install-doc: $(DOCS) install-sphinxdocs
 	$(INSTALL_DIR) "$(DESTDIR)$(qemu_docdir)"
 	$(INSTALL_DATA) qemu-doc.html "$(DESTDIR)$(qemu_docdir)"
 	$(INSTALL_DATA) qemu-doc.txt "$(DESTDIR)$(qemu_docdir)"
@@ -841,6 +863,23 @@ docs/version.texi: $(SRC_PATH)/VERSION
 %.pdf: %.texi docs/version.texi
 	$(call quiet-command,texi2pdf $(TEXI2PDFFLAGS) $< -o $@,"GEN","$@")
 
+# Sphinx builds all its documentation at once in one invocation
+# and handles "don't rebuild things unless necessary" itself.
+# The '.doctrees' files are cached information to speed this up.
+.PHONY: sphinxdocs
+sphinxdocs: docs/devel/index.html docs/interop/index.html
+
+# Canned command to build a single manual
+build-manual = $(call quiet-command,sphinx-build $(if $(V),,-q) -b html -d .doctrees/$1 $(SRC_PATH)/docs/$1 docs/$1 ,"SPHINX","docs/$1")
+# We assume all RST files in the manual's directory are used in it
+manual-deps = $(wildcard $(SRC_PATH)/docs/$1/*.rst) $(SRC_PATH)/docs/$1/conf.py $(SRC_PATH)/docs/conf.py
+
+docs/devel/index.html: $(call manual-deps,devel)
+	$(call build-manual,devel)
+
+docs/interop/index.html: $(call manual-deps,interop)
+	$(call build-manual,interop)
+
 qemu-options.texi: $(SRC_PATH)/qemu-options.hx $(SRC_PATH)/scripts/hxtool
 	$(call quiet-command,sh $(SRC_PATH)/scripts/hxtool -t < $< > $@,"GEN","$@")
 
@@ -869,7 +908,7 @@ docs/qemu-block-drivers.7: docs/qemu-block-drivers.texi
 docs/qemu-cpu-models.7: docs/qemu-cpu-models.texi
 scripts/qemu-trace-stap.1: scripts/qemu-trace-stap.texi
 
-html: qemu-doc.html docs/interop/qemu-qmp-ref.html docs/interop/qemu-ga-ref.html
+html: qemu-doc.html docs/interop/qemu-qmp-ref.html docs/interop/qemu-ga-ref.html sphinxdocs
 info: qemu-doc.info docs/interop/qemu-qmp-ref.info docs/interop/qemu-ga-ref.info
 pdf: qemu-doc.pdf docs/interop/qemu-qmp-ref.pdf docs/interop/qemu-ga-ref.pdf
 txt: qemu-doc.txt docs/interop/qemu-qmp-ref.txt docs/interop/qemu-ga-ref.txt
diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index b66b7725512..77522561b8e 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
+/.doctrees
 /config-devices.*
 /config-all-devices.*
 /config-all-disas.*
