Did Marco Polo Go To China?

Any book that stirs up the kind of response this one has is worth reading. When an author/historian challenges any history that is such an integral part of our catechism s/he's going to get a reaction. Did Marco Polo Go to China? I don't know but it sure is intriguing to go back in time and try to figure it out.

From my own research, I have found no reliable eye-witness accounts to substantiate Marco Polo's travels. Instead I have found the accounts to read like a novel recounting a popular character. Author, Frances Wood, has opened up a fresh look at the evidence that has been under dusty tomes of historical hubris all this time. Wood lets the wind out of Marco Polos' sails! Anyone interested in truly good investigative reporting will be well rewarded by this intelligent account.

Some readers no doubt have heard of a forthcoming book, The City of Light, which purports to be the account of a 13th-century Italian-Jewish merchant visiting China four years before Marco Polo. With doubts being raised as to its authencity, because, among other reasons, the manuscript's owner refuses to allow its inspection, publication by Little, Brown has been postponed. Disappointed readers may take solace however in the recent publication of Did Marco Polo Go To China? (London: Secker & Warburg, 1995; Westview Press October 1, 1996, Hardcover, 187 pages, ISBN: 0813389984). Frances Wood, also author of the China entry for the famous Blue Guide series of travel guides, offers a critical look at what for many was the first inspiration of interest in Central Asia and the Silk Road. The book is a tour through the history of the various Il Milione manuscripts and the question of their authorship, but never bogs down into dry detail. Instead it asks a number of thoughtful questions which will give the reader pause. If Polo actually did visit all the places he claimed, why does he never mention those oddities such as chopsticks, footbinding and others which have caused the most comment among Westerners? And why does he seem to dwell so consistently on certain other topics such as markets and fortifications? Wood points out that despite Polo's claims of contacts with the Kublai Khan and other high officials, he is not mentioned in the court documents of the period. But if we doubt some of Polo's tale, how much is true and what are the true sources of this information? You will have to reach some of your own conclusions, but Wood skilfully and always engrossingly presents all the evidence you'll want to solve this detective tale.