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Marco Polos Silk Road
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Marco Polos Silk Road
Marco Polos Silk Road
The Art of the Journey – An Italian at the Court of Kublai Khan
Hardback
272
pages
23.4 x 15.3
ISBN
9781780280158
RRP: £19.99
Price: £17.99
29 September 2011
Temporarily Unavailable
A beautifully illustrated, silk-bound gift edition of one of the greatest travel adventures of all time – Marco Polo’s 24-year odyssey from Venice to China and his sojourn at the court of Kublai Khan
This masterpiece of observation and adventure, once mocked for exaggeration is recognised today for its largely accurate and penetrating insights into the peoples and culture of the historic East. Polo’s book, dictated to a cellmate in a Genoan prison in the 13th century, revealed a world of wonders to the European imagination – including the luxuries of Kublai Khan’s court, as well as discoveries or inventions such as asbestos, a postal service, paper money and ‘stones that burn like logs’ (coal, not unknown in Europe but new to Polo). This luxury edition combines fine photographic illustrations with an abridgement based on two definitive translations by William Marsden (1818) and Henry Yule (1903). Polo was a forerunner of the great age of exploration. In his wake followed Columbus, Magellan and Vasco da Gama – and the world was changed forever.
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