The Travels of Marco Polo

I prefer this type of history over something academic so I'm biased, but I enjoyed the majority of this book. You can really let your imagination run wild trying to imagine the scenes he describes and for more "out there" type of things you can just look it up to get an answer (such as salamander and unicorn references).

Although Marco and his fellow Pisan ghostwriter were utterly untalented story-tellers, this is an amazing document. My favorite part: Marco describing people who mine fibrous cloth for their garments and saying that when the clothes get dirty they simply put them in the fire and they come out white. I guess people of that period died before they could get mesothelioma from asbestos exposure.The introduction and the notes are good.

It has been a pleasure to revisit the travels of Marco Polo. I was transfixed by these stories of travel and adventure when I was a child, and never questioned the veracity of the narrative. I know today that the narrative has been corrupted over the centuries, that "The Travels" can scarcely be used as an historical reference, and that a more tantalizing and complete manuscript has probably been lost to the ages. Still, there are glimpses and insights within the narrative that could only have come from first-hand experience, and these describe an enormous, exotic world that titillates even today, while readers in the 13th and 14th centuries must have been enthralled.I was most keen this time around to Polo's descriptions of the cultures and wildlife he encountered, of the whales and lions and leopards and bears--he even describes a white bear, and the people who hunted it were surely of the group often called Eskimos. He describes dog-sledding in the far north and the cannibalistic practices of the people of Java far to the south, both of which are extant in our current era. There are also the fascinating observations of the Mongol Empire, of that group of nomadic people who somehow rose up, like an event in an Isaac Asimov novel, to conquer much of the known world.Somewhat depressingly, though, are Polo's observations of the tensions that existed between the Islamic and Christian worlds, tensions rooted in the competition for hegemony over trade in the Far East. Seven hundred years later, these tensions are still acting themselves out.This translation by Ronald Latham from 1958 includes an introduction that puts Marco Polo's life in context with events and includes footnotes to help the reader make sense of the myriad manuscripts that make up the travels of Marco Polo. This is a somewhat dry read; even Latham comments on the paucity of skill employed by Polo's chronicler. Once I put my mind in context with the narrative, however, I was able to roll with the repetition and sycophancy and enjoy the text.

I have compared this edition with Cliff (Penguin), Latham (Penguin), Marsden and Yule translations and am able to say this edition is the best one (by now) for it is the most complete print and translation is scholarly accurate. The introduction is concise but very informative.As an Iranian and a native Persian speaker. When it comes to the Iranian (Persian) names and geography, both in today Iran and in places that used to be part of ancient Iran, I found Latham's translation seriously inaccurate. It is very much like a man's loose take of history; for example: Latham's frequently names Turkey, while the Republic of Turkey was born in 1923 for the first time!! In Marco Polo's era, this part of the world was ruled by local Seljuk warlords, Mongols, etc before it was called Ottoman empire almost 200 years later. There are numerous other impermissible inaccuracies throughout the Latham's translation.Yule's introduction has many sections, is very boring and, at some points, becomes very unrelated. The text is also not complete.Unfortunately, an ultimate edition that has a detailed but related as well as interesting biography of Marco Polo, great citations/footnotes, plentiful maps, analysis of accuracy (including estimation of the influence of Rusticello's style & words) is still missing; however, this edition is a reliable and I think most useful edition.

I understand that the quality of used books is a shot in the dark but the ones I have purchased before have been acceptable. However the Travels of Marco Polo that I recently purchased was about one step above trash and literally fell apart while I was reading it

This is a pleasurable read, many of the other editions are very academic, and the various footnotes and references can be so distracting. This, on the other hand, is sufficiently descriptive, that we can imagine in our mind's eye life in the court of Khan. There are colorful and informative descriptions of the pageantry of the court, the general social structure, the role of law as imposed by Khan in his efforts to create what was a functional society. He articulated his requirements and expectations on the part of the people, such as the development and required use of paper money to assure trade and commerce throughout the land on an "even" basis, so that each person could trust that his or her currency would be accepted equally. Even more impressive are the descriptions of birthday parties for the Emperor with 10,000 guests all dressed in silk robes, which went on for days, requiring a change of clothes every day...imagine the silk trade just to support that social event! Or Khan's hunting expeditions requiring 10,000 elephants marchingnacross the land to flush out tigers and other wildlife. A fun read, a good look into a time and place that would be unimaginable today.