{"product_id":"marco-polo-and-the-discovery-of-the-world-9780300079715","title":"Marco Polo and the Discovery of the World","description":"\u003cp\u003eAfter many years in Asia  Marco Polo wrote one of the most influential books of the past millennium. No mere travel account  Polos Book is a work that played a key role in the development of European overseas expansion. In this engaging and authoritative book  historian John Larner explores for the first time the full range of influence of Polos Book on the history of geography and exploration. Larner assesses the findings of modern scholarship and offers an original account of Polo and his family  of how and why the Book came into being  and of its reception over the centuries.  Beginning with a discussion of the extent of European knowledge of Asia early in the thirteenth century  Larner considers what is known about Marco Polos life and the composition of his text. He examines the Books scope and sources (vindicating its author from recent claims that he never visited China)  as well as the nature of Polos cooperation with his co-author Rustichello da Pisa. He traces the manuscript forms and translations of Polos Book in the Middle Ages  its influence on Western cartographers  its fortunes in the climate of fifteenth-century humanism  the possible extent of its encouragement to Columbus  and its later evolution into such new guises as the object of historical scholarship and exotic curiosity. Finally  Larner provides a fresh view of the enigmatic Polo  who  despite a deliberate cultivation of impersonality  continues today to engage the attention of readers.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45280082591797,"sku":"ByrdShop_0300079710","price":23.35,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780300079715.jpg?v=1780619818","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/marco-polo-and-the-discovery-of-the-world-9780300079715","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}