Xanadu

Xanadu investigates Marco Polo’s journey across Asia and his account of service at the court of Kublai Khan. John Man follows the routes linking Venice, Central Asia, China and the Mongol capital at Shangdu, setting Polo’s descriptions of cities, trade, government and imperial ceremony within the connected world created by the Pax Mongolica.

Retracing parts of the journey and examining textual and archaeological evidence, Man addresses the long debate over what Polo personally witnessed and how his story was shaped in transmission. The result is both a study of a medieval traveller and an account of Europe’s expanding knowledge of Asia, showing how the book associated with Polo transformed distant places into a durable mixture of observation, memory and legend.