Does anyone have any suggested reading about Marco Polo? I'm currently reading Paul Theroux's book, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, and started thinking about Marco Polo. Would greatly appreciate any suggestions.

Just about the only things we know for certain about Polo are that he was the son of a Venetian merchant, he dictated an account of what he claimed were his travels to a fellow-prisoner while he was a POW in a squabble with the Genoese and that the account became immediately popular.

Unsurprisingly, there's a highly reputable school of thought that says he made the whole thing up. The most recent version of this is Frances Wood's 'Did Marco Polo go to China?'

A more conventional acceptance of the old conman's tall tales is Lawrence Bergreen's 'Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu'

Who's right? Well, a few minutes reading Polo for yourself makes it perfectly clear a huge slug of what he's saying is total hokum. He repeats any old claptrap he's heard as uncritically as an anti-healthcare propagandist - and probably for much the same reason: nonsense stories make better headlines than the dull, complicated truth.

So read the man himself. There's loads of translations in paperback (just search him on Amazon). THE absolute best version, if you can possibly get hold of it, is the Henry Yule/Henri Cordier 1903 edition of their "The Book of Ser Marco Polo", reprinted in 1993 for about $30 by Munshiram Manoharlal in Delhi.

Packed with fold-up maps and the most extraordinary pictures, it tells you as much about how Polo influenced the West's views of China as about the farrago of imaginative gibberish Polo devised or remembered to while away a boring stint in chokey.

flan -- thank you so much for your very considered and intelligent reply. I'll search Amazon and my local library and read whatever I find. (Repeating claptrap seems to be the thing, as you mention....headlines and whatever sells...whether true or not). Thanks again.

There was a program on PBS last evening about 2 guys from New York following Marco Polo's route from Venice to China and back again. I saw only the first part but it was pretty engaging. When I left it, they were stuck for several weeks in Azerbaijan, I think, trying to get visas to cross through Iran. I don't think they ever did get the visas and eventually decided to go around Iran rather than through. They were travelling by road and by water, no flights, because they wanted to travel as Marco Polo did.

Here's a link to more info: http://www.wliw.org/marcopolo/about/about-the-film/159/

Thanks, Julia. Looks like it was quite good; sorry I missed it. Maybe I can catch it next time around.