History 350
Book Review
The Travels Of Marco Polo
Translated and Introduced By Ronald Latham
Abaris Books Inc. New York
This is a paper that will take a look at one of the most important books in history. A European merchant named Marco Polo wrote down the book in 1297 or 1298. His book was a primary source for knowledge on the Far East. Marco Polo himself was probable the only one to travel by his routs for six hundred years. "There was never a man yet, Christian, or Saracen, Tartar or Pagan, who explored so much of the world as Messer Marco, son of Messer Niccolo Polo, great and noble citizen of the city of Venice."(The Travels of Marco Polo, 303) So begins Marcos Polo's book and it is a good one. In this Paper I will discuss the events that allowed for Marco's Journey to be possible, how he came to be a wealth merchant, and will tell his story has seen through a modern persons eyes looking at a medieval person in a strange land.
Map of Marco Polo's travels.
English: Marco Polo travelling, Miniature from the...
Noccolo And Maffeo Polo With GregoryXAt the height of the high medieval period when cathedrals were being built, Governments being organized, and universities being formed a young Venetian boy set out on a journey with his father and uncle. The boy named Marco Polo would later tell his story in a book. This book "Description of the World" would become the primary source for the image Europeans had of the Far East until the later part of the nineteenth century. His accounts where some of the only ones, at least written down, that told of lands beyond the holy land. His book was romanticized and exaggerated for the public but is nonetheless based in fact. He intended the book to be for the general public but...