History Book Club
Explorers and Adventurers in History
before the 20th Century
Wednesday, February 28. 2018
Polo, Marco;. The
Travels of Marco Polo, Edited and with an Introduction by Milton Rugoff. Signet, 2001
Map of Marco Polo’s travels
When Marco
Polo published “Description of the World” people took it as fantastic fiction.
After all,
his tales of Kings and Emperors with fabulous riches, clothed in bejeweled
garments, with brigades of beautiful women all waiting to please his majesty;
thousands of elephants, marching in formation, all wearing cloth of gold…mighty
mountain ranges, so high that birds could not fly…deserts where dead bodies
turned to dust…black stones (coal) that burned… pools of liquid (petroleum)
that burned…a cloth that withstands fire (asbestos), natives that ate human
flesh.. widows who were burned alive with their dead husbands…and paper money!
Who could
believe such tales?
Nicolo and
Maffeo Polo actually started all this with their travels in search of better
products to sell. They spent a lot of
time in Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey), but then they moved up to the
Black Sea and the Crimean Peninsula, then on up into Muslim territory, avoiding
troubles with one marauding band of Tartars after another.
In 1265 the
two Polo brothers made it to the court of Kublai Khan. Kublai Khan was quite a genial leader who
tolerated all kinds of religions in his midst, and, intrigued about
Christianity, asked the two Polos to see the Pope when they returned home and
ask that 100 teaching monks be sent to Cathay.
The Polos
returned home to Venice, and while still near the Holy Land passed along Khan’s
invitation to the Pope. The Pope managed
to find two friars to send, but then one dropped out and the last one, when he
saw how dangerous this mission could be, dropped out. However, this time the
two Polos brought Nicolo’s 17-year-old son, Marco.
It was
Marco who was alert enough to see the richness of each culture and each city
and province, and to record it for all these centuries. It’s
amazing that we had the Greeks and the Romans visiting the Far East, and
bringing back exotic spices, food, fabrics, jewels and more… and then travel
and trade between Europe and Asia became almost non-existent until the
Portuguese and the Spaniards, Dutch and Englishmen began their sea voyages in
the 15th and 16th centuries.
Marco was
born in 1254, and started on his first journey – to Persia, Tibet, Burma and
China in 1271.
I had the
privilege of visiting cities along the Silk Road in the 1960s through the
1980s--- Samarkand, Isfahan, Shiraz, Istanbul, Ashkhabad, Dushanbe, Bokhara
(Marco spent three years here), Tbilisi, Beirut, and even up to the area around
Lake Baikal. (Genghis Khan’s first capitol, in Karakorum). Often, we visited parts of those cities that
had seen little change since Marco Polo.
Marco, his
father and uncle arrived in Shangdu, the capital of Cathay, which had recently
installed its first non-Chinese emperor, the Mongol Kublai Khan. The Song
dynasty ended, and the Yuan dynasty began in 1264. This was good luck for
Marco, because Kublai was an intelligent leader, very curious and interested in
the rest of the world, and he took the Venetians under his wing. The fact that
in all their travels in Asia minor they had learned the Turkic language, that
of the Khan, was essential to their success.
Marco spent
most of his time in Cathay, or China today, in Lanzhou, Peiping, Chengdu and
Hangchow. He told about the marvelous
riches, the elegant jewels and fabrics, and the flora and fauna in each place
he visited or lived. He was most impressed with the Mongol horseman, who could
stay on his horse over a day if required, sleeping in the saddle while the
horse grazed. Horsemen and horses worked together seamlessly. Horsemen were
trained to attack fiercely, to maneuver in groups of ten, one thousand or 100,000.
Horsemen could get instant energy from tapping a vein on their horse and
drinking the blood.
As the
years wore on, and Kublai Khan, their sponsor was growing old, the three Polos
asked to be released to return to Venice, but each time the Khan refused,
telling them that they would surely be killed on the trip home. Finally, after 17 years on this trip, after
the Polos had acquired great wealth, the Khan agreed for them to accompany a
Mongol princess, on a sea journey to marry a Persian prince.
They departed
on this trip in a four-masted ship with a crew of 600, bamboo sails, and
oarsmen. The Khan gave Marco a gold “passport”, the size of one’s palm, which authorized
the travelers free passage in bandit-ridden lands, food, lodging--- a 13th
century American Express Black Card.
The trip
took the Polos two years, as they cruised down the coast from Cathay, past
Zipango (Japan), the Philippines, Sumatra, into the Indian Ocean, landing at
the Straits of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf with only 18 people remaining,
including all three Polos and the Princess. By that time the Prince had died,
so the Princess married his son.
The Polos traveled
overland to Constantinople, and then by sea through the Aegean, Mediterranean and
Adriatic, back to Venice.
Three years
after his return, Marco commanded a Venetian warship in war with Genoa. He was captured and thrown in prison. During his one year there, he dictated his
adventures to Rustichello of Pisa, and that account spread far and wide. Many doubted the tales he told, but
Christopher Columbus took interest, and Marco’s tales of the richness of Asia
doubtless attracted Columbus’ attention.
Imagine
Christopher’s surprise when he sailed west to find all those riches and found a
whole continent in between!
S.W. Coulbourn
HISTORY
BOOK CLUB TOPICS FOR 2018
Wednesday, February
28, 2018: Famous Travelers and
Adventurers before the 20th Century—their lives and stories. Marco
Polo, Christopher Columbus, Lewis and Clark, Stanley and Livingstone, more. [Suggested by Walt Frederick]
Wednesday, March 28,
2018: The U.S. Navy in Asia. The Asiatic Squadron. The Yangtze Patrol. Patrolling
the Philippine Islands, “China Sailors”, World War II, The Seventh Fleet. [Suggested by Walt Frederick]
Wednesday, April 25, 2018: A look at the world and times of Jane Austen.
Rockport Public Library is celebrating “Austen in April”. Read about the life of Austen, or focus upon
England in the early 1800s, the Royal Navy at that time, the gentle English
world Jane lived in. Feel free to read Sense and Sensibility, Pride
and Prejudice, Persuasion, or any of her novels to gather a sense of
Jane and her world. [Suggested by
Christiann Guibeau]
Wednesday, May 30,
2018: A History of Public Relations. Managing
the news, propaganda, image-building. Hitler’s Joseph Goebbels. Ancient
persuasive techniques. How information, false. Tainted or factual, can be used
to elect leaders, start wars, and more. [Suggested
by Sam Coulbourn]
Wednesday, June 27,
2018: The History of Language. Can you understand the English spoken by
Chaucer? [WHAN that Aprille with his
shoures soote; The droghte of Marche
hath perced to the roote, And bathed every veyne in swich licour,]
Choose any language and learn how it grew from its ancient roots, how it
absorbed other languages, how it spread, and its variations in use in the world
today. Did you know that only one in 40 Italians spoke Italian in 1861? What language is most widely spoken in the
world today? How are languages changing in modern times? [Suggested by Sam Coulbourn]
Wednesday, July 25,
2018: Immigration to America. How
did we all get here? Read about the
history of immigration, at any stage – from first settlers to the great
immigration waves of the 19th and early 20th centuries;
victims of the Irish Potato famine, Jews fleeing persecution in Europe,
Europeans suffering poverty in their countries, Africans brought here as
slaves, Chinese brought here to build railroads; Fugitives of war everywhere;
Mexicans and Central Americans coming to pick crops. Read about immigration
policies and national drives to keep out or encourage immigration. [Suggested by Walt Frederick.]
Wednesday, August 29, 2018. Fighting
the U.S. Constitution. Times and events when the Americans and even
Presidents went against the freedoms in our Constitution. E, g, Alien and
Sedition Acts of 1798, Indian Removal Act under Jackson, Mexican American War, suspension
of Habeas Corpus under Lincoln, Red Scare in 1920, McCarthyism in 1950’s, and Patriot
Act 2001. [Suggested by William
Tobin]
Wednesday, September 26: Religion and Politics in America. Religious impact in American political events. E.g.:
Puritan Exceptionalism, justification of Slavery through the Bible, Abolition
Movement, treatment of Native American Christianization movement, Justification
of Imperialism’s Christianization mission. [Suggested
by William Tobin]
Massachusetts
54th Infantry Regiment (Afro-American) at Fort Wagner
Wednesday, October 24, 2018. (vice Oct. 31): African
American Warriors and their place in American History. From the American
Revolution, during the Civil War to Korean War. E.g.: Contraband to
Massachusetts 54th, Buffalo Soldiers and Native American Wars, Spanish American
War and Truth about Battle of San Juan Hill, World War I and use of African
American soldiers with French combat troops, World War II and Segregated
all African American combat units: Armor, Transport, Tuskegee Airmen,
Desegregation and Korean War. [Suggested by William Tobin]
Wednesday, November 28, 2018: Guns in American
History. E.g. American Revolution and the Minutemen; Going West with new
technology: six guns, repeating rifles, Twentieth Century automatic weapons
after World War I, : pistols, rifles, Tommy guns, The St. Valentine’s Massacres
of 1929 and 2018. Control vs. freedom of gun use. and Machine Gun laws, mass
shootings in America: rifles, pistols, military style weapons, Guns laws
in 21st century America. [Suggested by William Tobin]
December 2018: No
meeting.
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