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Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu (Vintage)
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$16.95
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Manufacturer: Vintage
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 909
EAN: 9781400078806
ISBN: 1400078806
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 432
Publication Date: 2008-10-21
Publisher: Vintage
Release Date: 2008-10-21
Studio: Vintage
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Editorial Reviews:
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As the first European to travel extensively throughout Asia, Marco Polo was the earliest bridge between East and West. His famous journeys took him across the boundaries of the known world, along the dangerous Silk Road, and into the court of Kublai Kahn, where he won the trust of the most feared and reviled leader of his day. Polo introduced the cultural riches of China to Europe, spawning centuries of Western fascination with Asia.
In this lively blend of history, biography, and travelogue, acclaimed author Laurence Bergreen separates myth from history, creating the most authoritative account yet of Polo's remarkable adventures. Exceptionally narrated and written with a discerning eye for detail, Marco Polo is as riveting as the life it describes.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: needs maps
Comment: Very good book. I enjoyed it very much, but it really should have had some maps! There is just one miniature map at the beginning, and then nothing. I realize that it is not always clear where he was, but some educated guesses would have been helpful.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Too bad
Comment: I gave it a hundred pages. I wanted to know about the subject.
But page after page of paraphrasing Polo's own account is not entertaining. Nor is the occasional trite professorial snide throwaways concerning the unsophistication of Polo, of Europeans, and especially of Christendom.
Polo's journey was remarkable, with risks and obstacles we can't today imagine. Sitting back today and judging the thoughts of Polo and his contemporaries through the eyes of our own post-modern awesomeness is tiresome. No doubt students have to be subjected to this, but time for entertaining reading is scarce.
On the dust cover bio, the author's previous works are cited. The bit of personal information therein? That he graduated from Harvard. Relevant?
Hopefully the book got better after 100 pages, but as I say, my time for reading is short, and an author who constantly gets in front of his subject matter is too distracting.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Best Marco Bio
Comment: Marco Polo is something of a hero of mine. I think of him as an archetype of the "Intrepid Merchant" figure that travels through both real life and literature and still exists today in some of the more dangerous parts of the world. People like Marco brought knowledge and wealth back and forth and could be credited with a great part in the develpment of democracy.
In the old "eat your spinach first" tradition I will deal with the faults first. The first is simply presumption. The author makes so many guesses about Marco's personality that one might wonder if he was writing a novel. Moreover much of his guesswork looks suspiciously like wishful thinking. That is pardonable when doing a biography of someone for whom there are so few real records. But the author takes it way to far and occasionally even questions the authenticity of versions of "Travels" because they disaggree with his preconceptions. The second fault is the author's preachiness. The author seems to like to paint a "deliverance from ignorance" morality tale, and tends to be shocked, shocked that medieval people did not in fact think like a twenty-first century academic's version of Political Correctness. This is a fairly conventional fault too and again, any historian should be pardoned a little preachiness-it kind of goes with the vocation. However the author hammers on it enough to take away some of the fun. Both of these faults are in fact conventional to the Marco tale. But the author takes these quite far.
So much for flaws. Now to the virtues. These are many and mighty. The book is not just a biography. It is a panorama of the Medieval world. From the ambitious, shrewd, and sometimes ferocious merchant princes of Venice. To the splendours of the Khan's court. To the conquered but ultimatly unconqurable vastness of China. Not to mention the hardships of the trade routes and the romantic cities whose very names give visions of glory. The author has the love for his subject and the epic sensibility that is an asset to a history writter. Nor is detail neglected and there is plenty of detail to go around. A surefire attraction to those like me who have a taste for romance and a love of detail-and appreciate when they are combined.
Some may be annoyed by the frequent tendency to drift aside from the plain narrative. To me they are the most interesting part. While I sometimes imagine myself hearing coffeehouse tales from Marco in heaven(of course they have coffeehouses in heaven-who could doubt it!)on Earth there is little to work with besides the simple Idea of his journey. However the side drifts are knowledgeable, and well-researched as well as entertaining. There is more then enough to take delight in.
I have a personal story to go with this. One of the reasons I like my Kindle is that it allows me to have a vast diversity of subjects at my grasp. But I felt it somehow incomplete because it did not have anything on the great Silk Road that I was satisfied with. Well now it has and this book is a great addition to my collection.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A fair intro to Marco Polo
Comment: Didn't like this as much as his Magellan bio. Seemed a little bit scattered - sometimes he would say the same thing twice in a row, other times contradict himself without explanation - and you don't get the sense he's bringing anything new to the table.
Still, he's got an enjoyable writing style. For someone looking for a quick overview of Marco Polo, this will get the job done.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Historical Accuracy?
Comment: After having read only about 50 pages of this book, I am seriously questioning the historical accuracy of it. I am an amateur of Medieval, and in particular Venetian, history and I find that Mr. Bergreen oversimplifies and generalizes some events and conditions of 13th C Europe to a bothering degree. For example, he paints the Venetians as merchants bent on warfare where most historical sources show that they preferred to carry on matters peacefully since that was, indeed, more profitable for business, and only engaged in warfare when they felt their business interests were threatened. He also portrays the city of Venice itself as a sinister place ripe with disease, corruption, social inequality, intrigue and abuse of women. What Mr. Bergreen fails to do is compare the conditions in Venice with other those in other European cities and states where they were no better, if not worse. In fact, in many ways 13th C Venice was arguably far more enlightened than many other places with its functioning republican government, its strong mechant marine, its developing business acumen and its strong international ties. These are just a few of the inaccuracies I found.
My concerns being thus about the first part of the book, I am skeptical about the accuracy of what I am about to read - of which I have less thorough knowledge. I am afraid I will have to take it with the proverbial "grain of salt" and also keep in mind, as another reviewer has stated, that Marco Polo's memoirs were not intended as historical fact, but as engaging adventure tales told while he was in prison.
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