Marco Polo

Marco Polo

Author: Edna M. Preston

Publisher: Atheneum

Published: 1968-04-01

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9780029775141

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Travel in the Middle Ages

Travel in the Middle Ages

Author: Jean Verdon

Publisher:

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13:

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As a companion to his previous volume Night in the Middles Ages, Jean Verdon offers insight into the pitfalls and perils of travelling during medieval times. Travel in the Middle Ages is filled with the stories and adventures of those who hazarded hostile landscapes, elements, and people - out of want or necessity - to get from place to place. Verdon contends that a journey in the current sense, suggesting both the movement of a person who travels to a fairly distant place and philosophical ideas of distraction and flight from self, did not exist in the Middle Ages. Indeed, he says, nothing either in the means of communication or in the landscape encouraged travel. And yet, Verdon points out, the world of the Middle Ages was one of unceasing movement.


Marco Polo

Marco Polo

Author: Nick McCarty

Publisher: National Geographic Books

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 68

ISBN-13: 9781426302961

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A biography of the Italian explorer who became famous for his travels in Asia.


Did Marco Polo Go To China?

Did Marco Polo Go To China?

Author: Frances Wood

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-06-19

Total Pages: 185

ISBN-13: 0429980620

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We all ?know? that Marco Polo went to China, served Ghengis Khan for many years, and returned to Italy with the recipes for pasta and ice cream. But Frances Wood, head of the Chinese Department at the British Library, argues that Marco Polo not only never went to China, he probably never even made it past the Black Sea, where his family conducted business as merchants.Marco Polo's travels from Venice to the exotic and distant East, and his epic book describing his extraordinary adventures, A Description of the World, ranks among the most famous and influential books ever published. In this fascinating piece of historical detection, marking the 700th anniversary of Polo's journey, Frances Wood questions whether Marco Polo ever reached the country he so vividly described. Why, in his romantic and seemingly detailed account, is there no mention of such fundamentals of Chinese life as tea, foot-binding, or even the Great Wall? Did he really bring back pasta and ice cream to Italy? And why, given China's extensive and even obsessive record-keeping, is there no mention of Marco Polo anywhere in the archives?Sure to spark controversy, Did Marco Polo Go to China? tries to solve these and other inconsistencies by carefully examining the Polo family history, Marco Polo's activities as a merchant, the preparation of his book, and the imperial Chinese records. The result is a lucid and readable look at medieval European and Chinese history, and the characters and events that shaped this extraordinary and enduring myth.


The Story of Civilization

The Story of Civilization

Author: Phillip Campbell

Publisher:

Published: 2017-06

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781505105742

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"Children should not just read about history, they should live it. In The Story of Civilization, the ancient stories that have shaped humanity come alive like never before. Volume II, The Medieval World, continues the journey, picking up where Volume I left off just after the conversion of Emperor Constantine. Children will watch the seeds of Christendom being planted in the soil of Europe thanks to colossal figures like Saints Benedict, Patrick, and Ambrose. The wonder of the medieval world comes alive with brilliant tales of knights, crusaders, castles, and inventions"--Page [4] of cover.


The Medieval Invention of Travel

The Medieval Invention of Travel

Author: Shayne Aaron Legassie

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2017-04-12

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 022644273X

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Over the course of the Middle Ages, the economies of Europe, Asia, and northern Africa became more closely integrated, fostering the international and intercontinental journeys of merchants, pilgrims, diplomats, missionaries, and adventurers. During a time in history when travel was often difficult, expensive, and fraught with danger, these wayfarers composed accounts of their experiences in unprecedented numbers and transformed traditional conceptions of human mobility. Exploring this phenomenon, The Medieval Invention of Travel draws on an impressive array of sources to develop original readings of canonical figures such as Marco Polo, John Mandeville, and Petrarch, as well as a host of lesser-known travel writers. As Shayne Aaron Legassie demonstrates, the Middle Ages inherited a Greco-Roman model of heroic travel, which viewed the ideal journey as a triumph over temptation and bodily travail. Medieval travel writers revolutionized this ancient paradigm by incorporating practices of reading and writing into the ascetic regime of the heroic voyager, fashioning a bold new conception of travel that would endure into modern times. Engaging methods and insights from a range of disciplines, The Medieval Invention of Travel offers a comprehensive account of how medieval travel writers and their audiences reshaped the intellectual and material culture of Europe for centuries to come.


The Mysteries of the Marco Polo Maps

The Mysteries of the Marco Polo Maps

Author: Benjamin B. Olshin

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2014-10-29

Total Pages: 197

ISBN-13: 022614982X

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Concerns a collection of maps and associated documents claimed to be from Marco Polo's time or that of his daughters (as many of the maps have the name or one or another of the three daughters on them). Discusses provenance, authenticity, and history of the documents, known to scholars as "the Marco Polo Maps" since 1948, here discussed fully for the first time.