(Marco Polo contributed to the legend by stating that Prester John ruled over a kingdom on the rim of Inner Mongolia.) She ends her analysis of Polo's times by examining the legend of Prester John, believed by many in the thirteenth century to be a Christian ruler in either south or east Asia. She discusses not only the familiar importance of spices and other exotic items in the growing Eurasian trade, but also the secondary role of the Polos as religious missionaries in a time when medieval Europe had little direct knowledge of the state of religion in the East.

After giving an overview of Polo's journeys in Asia, Wood examines why Maffeo and Niccolo Polo would have trekked across Central Asia and taken the seventeen-year-old Marco in tow. The first four place Polo's alleged travels into historical context. Did Marco Polo Go to China? is divided into fifteen short chapters. Now Frances Wood, head of the China Department at the British Library, calls into question the validity of the Polo book's authorship and, more astoundingly, asks whether Polo even traveled to China.ĭrawing upon work undertaken by German Mongolist scholars in the mid-1960s, Wood goes far beyond their research in her painstaking analysis.

Prominently featured on world history reading lists, Polo's book is often used as a primary source in understanding thirteenth-century world history. $20 (cloth) $12 (paper).įew books are as well known to world historians as Marco Polo's Description of the World, popularly known as The Travels. Did Marco Polo Go to China? By Frances Wood.

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