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As the most celebrated European to explore Asia, Marco Polo was the original global traveler and the earliest bridge between East and West. A universal icon of adventure and discovery, he has inspired six centuries of popular fascination and spurious mythology. Now, from the acclaimed author of Over the Edge of the World: Magellan’s Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe (“Superb . . . A first-rate historical page turner”—The New York Times)—comes the first fully authoritative biography of one of the most enchanting figures in world history. In this masterly work, Marco Polo’s incredible odyssey—along the Silk Road and through all the fantastic circumstances of his life—is chronicled in sumptuous and illuminating detail.

We meet him as a callow young man, the scion of a wealthy Venetian merchant family, only seventeen when he sets out in 1271 with his father and uncle on their journey to Asia. We see him gain the confidence of Kublai Khan, the world’s most feared and powerful leader, and watch him become a trusted diplomat and intelligence agent in the ruler’s inner circle. We are privy to his far-flung adventures on behalf of the Khan, living among the Mongols and other tribes, and traveling to magical cities, some far advanced over the West. We learn the customs of the Khan’s court, both erotic and mercantile, and Polo’s uncanny ability to adapt to them. We follow him on his journey back to Venice, laden with riches, the latest inventions, and twenty-four years’ worth of extraordinary tales.

And we see his collaboration with the famed writer Rustichello of Pisa, who immediately saw in Polo the story of a lifetime; enlivened by his genius for observation, Polo’s tales needed little embellishment. Recorded by Rustichello as the two languished as prisoners of war in a Genoese jail, the Travels would explode the notion of non-Europeans as untutored savages and stand as the definitive description of China until the nineteenth century.

Drawing on original sources in more than half a dozen languages, and on his own travels along Polo’s route in China and Mongolia, Bergreen explores the lingering controversies surrounding Polo’s legend, settling age-old questions and testing others for significance. Synthesizing history, biography, and travelogue, this is the timely chronicle of a man who extended the boundaries of human knowledge and imagination. Destined to be the definitive account of its subject for decades to come, Marco Polo takes us on a journey to the limits of history—and beyond.

Average Customer Rating:

Too bad

Customer Rating:

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.

The Best Marco Bio

Customer Rating:

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.

A fair intro to Marco Polo	Customer Rating:
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.

Historical Accuracy?

Customer Rating:

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.

Interesting

Customer Rating:

Marco Polo was captured by the Genoese during the Battle of Curzola in 1298 and was confined in a comfortable prison where he and the other prisoners roamed freely. Here he met Rustichello, a romance author, and together they compiled and embellished Marco's travel stories. They both profited from this endeavor by entertaining guests to while away the time, and later for monetary rewards. This collection was called "Travels." Marco Polo's Travels, while based on his travels and the stories he heard on his travels, were never meant to be an accurate travelogue - these were stories to entertain the guests. As such, taking the Travels (of which there are several manuscripts often contradicting each other, rearranging the order of events and omitting events) as a factual account of Marco Polo's adventures is missing the point. It seems that this account is based on one of the more complete manuscripts and the text usually takes the manuscript at face value (often citing how the events could be true), except for a few well-known discrepancies. The text itself is choppy most probably because it closely mirrors the manuscripts, which lack a coherent structure, ramble on and notoriously jump from one topic to another. The writing is repetitious and focuses on details that do not readily fit into a coherent overarching structure. While a lot of research may have gone into exploring the subject matter, the final product falls short of an engaging narrative or an insightful critique. As far as the content is concerned, this book may be good at the high school level, but is not suitable at the college level. Unfortunately, the writing style poses additional challenges when approaching the text. A major oversight is the inexplicable absence of a single modern map. One would expect not only relevant maps, but also those showing the routes that Marco Polo claimed to have taken during his journeys. The book's attempt to add depth to Marco Polo's character, herald him as a forward-thinking globalist, pilgrim and explorer are less than convincing. Armchair Interviews says: Heed this reviewer's comments