Marco Polo and His World

(Hardback)

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Description

Aged seventeen, Marco Polo left his home in Venice on a continent-spanning adventure that lasted for nearly a quarter of a century. Imprisoned in Genoa five years later, he collaborated with Arthurian romance writer Rustichello of Pisa on a work they called The Description of the World. Their book recounted 'all the greatest marvels and great diversities of Greater Armenia, Persia, the Tartars, India, and many other provinces'. In Marco Polo and His World Sharon Kinoshita brings these marvels to life, describing the rich commodities, plants, people and animals that Marco encountered and recorded. Copiously illustrated, and ranging from Venice, Genoa and Pisa to Khanbaliq, Quinsai and Zaytun, this is a vivid account of Marco Polo's astounding adventures.

Reviews

'An excellent general introduction to Marco Polo . . . Kinoshita provides much-needed elegant and imaginative discussions of historical contexts, in terms of people, places and activities in different parts of the world in Marco Polo's time, as a way of bringing Polo and his work to life.' - Margaret Kim, Professor, National Tsing Hua University

Author Bio

Sharon Kinoshita is Professor of Literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz, specializing in Medieval French Literature, Mediterranean Studies and the Global Middle Ages. Her publications include an annotated translation of Marco Polo's Description of the World (2016).