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Title: Did Marco Polo Go to China? by Frances Wood ISBN: 0-8133-8999-2 Publisher: Westview Press Pub. Date: January, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.17 (6 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Did Marco Polo go to China? A matter of perspective
Comment: As with any book of historical perspective, the reader should take into account the historian's viewpoint, but also what is not said. Indeed history is interpreted through it's interpreters, historians, through facts that they believe to be accurate. There are, however, other viewpoints or perspectives that can be as well supported through facts.
"Did Marco Polo Go to China?" piques the issue and raises some considerable debatable questions on whether one of history's greatests myths is indeed fact and to what level cultural diffusion took place between the east and west during that specific time period.
Please read this book with objectivity and do not consider it to be the answer, as the answer should be found after reading all different viewpoints through a self-exploration process.
Rating: 3
Summary: Something to think about
Comment: Frances Wood provides a semi-revisionist view on the travels of Messer Marco Polo. Wood offers a number of contentions (chopsticks, the Great Wall, cormorant fishing, Chinese writing, paper, tea, foot binding, not being mentioned in Mongolian and Chinese historical records, not learning Chinese, and the who invented ice cream/spaghetti debate) that make it seem highly unlikely that Polo actually went as far east as China. I will list each of Woods main arguments and then offer my own explanation.
Chopsticks: this is a good argument, however, there are many people in Central Asia that use chopsticks. In the Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China for example, most if not all Uighurs use chopsticks when eating noodles and dumplings. Perhaps Polo would have been surprised to see people in Central Asia using chopsticks at first, but by the time he traveled all the way eastward to China he had become accustomed to seeing the use of chopsticks and so this was not such an exciting thing. And what about the Middle East where people eat with their right hand and wipe with their left? Why is'nt this mentioned by Polo?
The Great Wall: another decent argument. However, there is absolutely no way to verify the exact route Polo took and so how can we discern if he ever had the chance to actually see the wall or not? Many travelers have tried to trace his route but none have succeeded. Wood describes the Wall as being made of yellow sand and mud. If you have ever been to China, you will see how well the old original parts of the wall blends in with the countryside. Only now can we really make out the wall with all of its brick renovations/restorations. It would be like someone coming to visit New York City and seeing the Empire State Building. Impressive? Yes. But would that person be so excited about it that they would write about it? Probably not.
Comorant fishing: It's not like all of China fishes with cormorant birds. This is a very specialized brand of fishing in a very small portion of China. It's very possible that Polo never even had a chance to visit this area.
Chinese writing : Woods argues that Polo never mentions anything about Chinese writing/caligraphy. But if Polo was a sycophant of Kublai Khan and Mongolia being the dominant country at the time, there would be no reason for Polo to learn Chinese. But surely he must have learned some Chinese but he just did'nt mention it. Besides, Mongol script is very similar to Arabic script and so again, this would not be anything new to Polo having traveled throughout Persia and the Middle East.
Paper: what is so exciting about paper when the great Khan gives you a golden tablet for unmolested travel back to Venice?
tea: tea was available everywhere in the Middle East and India. Why would this be a revelation?
Foot binding: most Chinese women who had their feet bound were of the upper class. Supposedly done to make women look more sexy, it was in reality more or less a sinister way of not allowing women freedom and the opportunity to cheat on their husbands. If a woman was unhappy in her marriage, there was absolutely no way for her to "walk out" so to speak. Most foot bound women stayed at home inside so Polo may not have had much opportunity to see this practice.
Not being mentioned in historical records: Polo probably exaggerated greatly his importance within the Imperial Court. He was also not the the first European to visit Mongolia/China. And even if he was a high official, was it not more the responsibility of the Mongols to document this as opposed to China as Mongolia was the ruling country?
Who invented Ice Cream and Spaghetti, Italy or China?: I think it is pretty obvious that these two foods originated in Central Asia, if not the Middle East. Woods admits this herself. Having been to Central Asia, it seems to me highly likely or quite possible that these could have originated in West/Central Asia. Dumplings are a regular staple of many within Central Asia.
After 17 years in a foreign land, it would have been very difficult to remember every single thing that Polo saw. Polo himself said that he had not told the half of what he saw.
All in all, this is an excellent book worth reading. Wood says that this is not the ultimate answer or authority on whether Polo actually visited China, but a book to read so that people can think more analytically and critically about Marco Polo.
A very readable book with a number of passages that describe the power and ferocity of the Mongols: "like the reprisal against Burma (1277) when the Muslim general of the Mongol army Nasir al-Din, aware that he was outnumbered , ordered his archers to fire on the two thousand Burmese war elephants, covering them with arrows and causing a frenzied stampede."
A book well worth reading but buy it used!
Rating: 2
Summary: Worth reading -- but in balance
Comment: Marco Polo, whose very name is a byword for travel and adventure, is worth reconsidering; but the case Frances Wood builds against him is primarily negative: Polo didn't mention the Great Wall, or cormorant fishing, or binding women's feet. All these matters are more than adequately answered in John Larner's MARCO POLO AND THE DISCOVERY OF THE WORLD, a book I recommend for balance. The thesis of Marco Polo not going to China is compelling, and Wood's style is fast-paced and keeps at a high level. But she seems to rebut her own argument in some places -- for instance, even mentioning a name close to "Polo" where Marco was said to have been, but dismissing it just as quickly by saying it couldn't have been him (the answer comes in a later chapter, but by the time you reach it, the author has made the argument look specious).
Marco Polo may indeed have exaggerated his own importance. Instead of being ruler of a province, being a major player in the salt business, on the face of it, was probably more likely his position. But Marco was a businessman brought up in a mercantile family. Unlike the author's idea, a seventeen year old in the thirteenth century was not considered a "boy" -- in fact, he was coming up on half his life expectancy. Even if the "great wall" of that day was the wall we see today (it wasn't, the impressive brick facade came later), we can hardly expect boyish wonder.
Without positive evidence, Frances Wood runs across the problem of those who believe Shakespeare didn't write his plays, or that he didn't exist. They can only argue from negative evidence, and a negative can't be proven. It cannot be proven that, because the Khan of Khans didn't mention a Venetian traveller, that the traveller who says he was there was lying -- although it can may suggest that he wasn't as important in the Khan's court as he intimates.
This book is only for those who wish to find out all aspects of the Polo problem. It's not recommended for the general reader, especially one who just wants to see famous people debunked. Debunking western European figures is a cottage industry at the turn of the twenty-first century, but in the case the evidence is very thin for the revisionists.
For someone who wants a good, solid, general overview of Polo and his mystique, check the John Larner book.
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Title: The Travels of Marco Polo by Marco Polo, Ronald Latham ISBN: 0140440577 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: September, 1958 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Marco Polo and the Discovery of the World by John Larner ISBN: 0300089007 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: 01 March, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: The Silk Road : Two Thousand Years in the Heart of Asia by Frances Wood ISBN: 0520237862 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: October, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China by Timothy Brook ISBN: 0520221540 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: September, 1999 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Inner Quarters: Marriage and the Lives of Chinese Women in the Sung Period by Patricia Buckley Ebrey ISBN: 0520081587 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: December, 1993 List Price(USD): $22.50 |
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