I just finished the audio version of “Marco Polo” by Laurence Bergreen, inspired by the recent release of the NetFlix series, which I LIKED, and I wanted to do some follow-up learning.
Think for a second… What do you know of Marco Polo?
I’m not going to answer that, because I have read the book, but I guarantee you that you will know more after you have finished!
The Listen itself is rather dry; the Narrator, Paul Boehmer, has a good voice for the job, but I wish another ‘voice’ would separate the Author’s comments/thoughts from the References.
I will be going back and re-listening to this; there is a ton of Info and Detail.
One has to remember that we are dealing with late 13th century accounts of travels that were well beyond ‘normal,’ ‘civilized’ thought at that time.
Do a simple time travel in your mind…
Fire is your only real source of Life…
No real books to speak of…
How many people knew how to write?
How many people could afford to write?
Marco’s best work was done in prison?
Sorry… “Spoilers”
If you like to Read/Listen to this type of Historic literature, and this time frame (1200s – 1300s), may I also suggest “Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World” by Jack Weatherford, which gives a much broader look at the Khan’s family reign over the Mongol empire. (I’ve listened to this one twice already!)
The Kahn’s tolerance of all religions, something that is very much missed in this day and age, continues to amaze me. We could do better with a revisit of the ‘old days’…
That being said, “Marco Polo” by Laurence Bergreen, is well worth the Listen/Read.
As Bergreen points out, no original surviving manuscripts exist of Marco’s journeys, and the various stories have been told and retold so many times that we will never know the true extent of what was witnessed.
Anyhow, I’m off to LibriVox to download “The Book of Sir Marco Polo, the Venetian, concerning the kingdoms and marvels of the East, volume 1,” translated by Henry Yule… Just under 10 hours…
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