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World Hotels - The Travels of Marco Polo
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List Price: $10.95
Our Price: $9.85
Your Save: $ 1.10 ( 10% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Cosimo Classics
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
EAN: 9781602068612
ISBN: 1602068615
Label: Cosimo Classics
Manufacturer: Cosimo Classics
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 408
Publication Date: 2007-10-15
Publisher: Cosimo Classics
Studio: Cosimo Classics
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Editorial Reviews:
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It was perhaps the first book to achieve best-seller status before the invention of the printing press-it was certainly the most controversial. Did Venetian trader and explorer MARCO POLO (1254-1324) actually reach the court of Kublai Khan, serve the emperor as his emissary, and journey the distant lands of Cathay for 17 years, as he relates in his Travels of Marco Polo? The question still hasn't quite been settled today... but whether Polo experienced firsthand the wonders of ancient China, retold tales he heard from Arab travelers along the Silk Road, or simply invented half his stories, this remains a delightful read for fans of history, adventure, and medieval literature. The new edition features illustrations from a 14th-century French version of Polo's manuscript.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: There And Back Again
Comment: "The Travels" of Marco Polo is easily one of the most important books in Western literature. Written during the Late Middle Ages, this book has been widely read and appreciated for nearly 700 years. Yet modern readers should note that this is not a modern work meant for pure entertainment. Furthermore, "The Travels" is not a narrative work in any sense, but rather a collection of anecdotes, observations and impressions of places little understood by Europeans during Polo's time. Considerable attention is paid to the products, wild-life, climate and various customs of the places visited by Polo (if indeed he did visit them), yet from this book we know almost nothing about Polo himself or his life during the decades he spent abroad. Thus don't expect a rousing adventure story, but rather a loose collection of stories - some real, some plainly fantastic - similar to those found in the first half of "The Histories" by Herodotus. Yet this book still offers much to enjoy and is a great read if you can accept the literary conventions of Polo's time and take the information presented here with a grain of salt.
Regarding the Penguin edition: this version provides a very useful historical introduction to pre-Renaissance Europe and interesting biographical information about Marco himself. Furthermore, the numerous footnotes throughout the book make clear the differences between the early manuscripts of this work (at times, the extant MSS differ considerably) and the editors do a decent job (for a non-scholarly reader at least) of providing an "accurate" version of the text.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Essential Travelogue, could have been better presented
Comment: I have read this book while traveling in China by train. It is a very interesting description of past times, and essential reading for those interested in historical geography. Several points need to be clarified, though. First Marco Polo is not what one would call today an âaeunbiased observerâ. He traveled on the trips he wrote about while being employed as an emissary for the Mongols, and his admiration for the Mongol regime shows throughout. People and civilizations are judged by their proximity to the Mongol Khan. The point of view of the Chinese and other victims of Mongols is completely absent.
Second, Marco Polo was obsessed with power, money, prostitution, and religion. Most of his descriptions center about these things, to the neglect of other aspects of human life. He divides the cities he encounters upon religious lines, even in places like China where the inhabitants themselves werenâ(tm)t aware or didnâ(tm)t care about such divisions. His admiration for Christianity and his contempt for Buddhism (whom he erroneously associates with idol worship) shows through. He often writes as if drunken with admiration for Mongol power, praising the Khan for massacring entire cities, while at the same time labeling peaceful people as âaepusillanimousâ.
Having said that, these travelogues are still interesting to read. The short-chapter format is very well-suited to reading in the bathroom. The translation by William Marsden is very well-done and easy to read. However, my edition (Wordsworth Editions, 1997) could be improved in several ways. A map for instance showing the route of his travels would go a long way assisting the reader to follow along. Otherwise one has to reconstruct the places from the crude narrative (âaeand then we traveled 3 days by camel heading East, then turned to left and walked 1 day â¦â). Frankly, quite often I had no clue about which location he was writing. So I ended up copying a map from a history book and pasting it inside the back cover. Still one desires a more detailed map, with marks designating locations chapter by chapter.
Another desperately needed improvement is a translation table. Many of the place names he used had long been ignored and replaced with new place names. In my edition there is one page glossary of place names, but that is far from adequate. For example, the glossary only translates 5 place names in China, leaving dozens other names in oblivion, and leaving me wondering whether the city of Kin-Sai, the one Marco Polo praises the most and devotes the most pages to, is modern-day SuZhou or HangZhou. This is an important deficiency that needs to be corrected. Whatever edition you decide to buy, make sure first that it has a good map and a good glossary of names!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Barely believable adventures.
Comment: A very remarkable book written in the 13th century. Many secrets were reviled when Marco returned. And may interesting explanations of things like the origin of cinnamon.
Marco writes well enough of his travels and you feel that you are there. You can actually follow the trail if you have a map. He describes the flora and fauna of each region and describes the economics and industry of the region.
Example: "The women of the superior class are in like manner free from superfluous hairs; their skins are fare, and they are well formed."
It is interesting to see how little has changed from Marco Polo's 13th century and now.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Marco's journey
Comment: Marco Polo purportedly spent 17 years travelling to the courts of Kublai Khan and, as an emissary for Kublai Khan, then throughout the Far East. Whether it actually happened or not is up for debate. I went into this text with an open mindset and have accepted that Marco Polo did indeed go on this trip with his father and uncle, but not to the extent as surmised. Instead he travelled and added stories he collected from traders and others to fill in gaps or points of interest to him. The book is broken into four sections now. Part One is his trip to the Great Khan's courts in Cathay (China). Part Two is his travels throughout the provinces of Cathay. Part Three concerns going to Japan, Southern India, and the Islands of the Indian Sea (Java, etc). Part Four is travelling into the 'northern countries' (Russia, etc).
In general, Polo gives very brief descriptions of most regions, accounting for their religious beliefs, money used, fealty to the Great Khan Kublai. There's some intriguing customs (visitors will be taken into a home and the man of the house leaves until they are gone but the visitor has full access to the household including the wives, daughters, sisters, nieces), talks of cannibalism, dress, unfamiliar animals they encountered, and contributes to the whole messy history of Prestor John. It does get repetitive and dry after a while. Polo's talk of Kublai Khan is almost obsessive and he was obviously completely enamoured of this new culture. Overall, it was fascinating to read although I had to push myself through some parts due to repetitive descriptions. Any history buff should read this story about one of the purported most well-travelled explorers ever, not to mention he was possibly the biggest best-selling authors before the printing press was invented.
Customer Rating:
Summary: You are going where?
Comment: I believe I got what I paid for. There were much better books of great detail, but they cost much more. I would suggest saving your money until you can buy a much more comprehensive book. The reading and information provided in the book was light and was gone over very fast. I question some of the facts contained there in.
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