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The Travels of Marco Polo
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MSRP: $13.95
Your Price: $10.04
Savings: $ 3.91 ( 28% )
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Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
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Additional The Travels of Marco Polo Information
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Marco Polo was the most famous traveller of his time. His voyages began in 1271 with a visit to China, after which he served the Kubilai Khan on numerous diplomatic missions. On his return to the West, he was made a prisoner of war and met Rustichello of Pisa, with whom he collaborated on this book. The accounts of his travels provide a fascinating glimpse of the different societies he encountered: their religions, customs, ceremonies and way of life; on the spices and silks of the East; on precious gems, exotic vegetation and wild beasts. He tells the story of the holy shoemaker, the wicked caliph and the three kings, among a great many others, evoking a remote and long-vanished world with colour and immediacy.
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What Customers Say About The Travels of Marco Polo:
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The headers and notes are indecipherable from the body of the text, there are incomplete sentences, and at one point the text bleeds off the page. This is perhaps the worst edition of any book that I have ever encountered. It is a scan of an older edition, but the mis-scanned bits have not been touched up or corrected in any way. The one benefit of this text is that it allows students to see what a truly bad edition looks like, making them realize, in real time, the importance of using a good edition of something.I was hoping to get an inexpensive version of Polo's Travels for my great books class, and ended up with the Modern Library Classics version. Negative five stars.
The book arrived in good condition and in time to give on Christmas. The recipiant was very happy to receive it.
I was very pleased with my purchase. It arrived on time and in the overall condition as described.
Very happy with this purchase. At one time this book was hard to find, and expense to buy.
Having seen specimens over the five metre mark in captivity in Australia I can quite assure you that they can eat a man or darn near anything else they set their mind to.The journey described herein by Polo starts innocuously enough in medieval Italy soon find its way into the heart of the Mongol empire, thence to travel about the place at the behest of the Great Khan himself and from that position Marco is able to deliver numerous descriptions of local people, their customs and news of sites and nations he wasn't lucky enough to visit himself such as Japan.While it is fair to say that the level of understanding Polo achieved of some of the things he saw was limited which in turn limits what we can glean from his account the fact is that with very few possible exceptions he is pretty numero uno when it comes to eye witness accounts that have come down to us means that we really should not ignore his contribution. While it is true that the somewhat staid style of the journal makes for a not particularly free flowing read there is one heck of a lot of stuff written between the lines. A very low four stars here for this journal style book that has come down to us from Marco Polo.The book itself is not overly inspiring at first until the reader gradually is able to put himself into the shoes of a person of the time, as much as such a thing is possible, and the longer you ponder the technology of the time and the mindset of the people the more you come to appreciate just what an achievement this journey really was. I must also point out that my own enjoyment of this book was greatly increased and my understanding of what I was reading greatly enhanced by also reading `From Venice to Xanadu' by Laurence Bergreen.Ultimately I would not buy this book if you are after a breezy Sunday afternoon read. Tales that at first seem somewhat childish can often actually mean something. For example Marcos discussion of great serpents able to eat men and cattle comes across as something not really worth wasting your time on until you twig that the guy is actually describing crocodiles. Instead this is probably best tacked by someone with prior experiences of taking on `classics' of bygone eras as you will be used to some of the idiom and the other main audience I can see for this book is probably travel addicts looking for inspiration. Otherwise non enthusiastic readers may find it a somewhat dour slog.
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