Marco Polo and the Encounter of East and West

Marco Polo and the Encounter of East and West
Author: Suzanne Conklin Akbari
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2008-12-27
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1442693282

Few figures from history evoke such vivid Orientalist associations as Marco Polo, the Venetian merchant, explorer, and writer whose accounts of the "Far East" sparked literary and cultural imaginations. The essays in Marco Polo and the Encounter of East and West challenge what many scholars perceived to be an opposition of "East" and "West" in Polo's writings. These writers argue that Marco Polo's experiences along the Silk Road should instead be considered a fertile interaction of cultural exchange. The volume begins with detailed studies of Marco Polo's narrative in its many medieval forms (including French, Italian, and Latin versions). They place the text in its material and generic contexts, and situate Marco Polo's account within the conventions of travel literature and manuscript illumination. Other essays consider the appropriation of Marco Polo's narrative in adaptations, translation, and cinematic art. The concluding section presents historiographic and poetic accounts of the place of Marco Polo in the context of a global world literature. By considering the production and reception of The Travels, this collection lays the groundwork for new histories of world literature written from the perspective of cultural, economic, and linguistic exchange, rather than conquest and conflict.

Marco Polo and the Encounter of East and West

Marco Polo and the Encounter of East and West
Author: John Tulk
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2008-01-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0802099289

These essays challenge what many scholars perceived to be an opposition of "East" and "West" in Polo's writings.

The Mysteries of the Marco Polo Maps

The Mysteries of the Marco Polo Maps
Author: Benjamin B. Olshin
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 197
Release: 2014-10-29
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 022614982X

Concerns a collection of maps and associated documents claimed to be from Marco Polo's time or that of his daughters (as many of the maps have the name or one or another of the three daughters on them). Discusses provenance, authenticity, and history of the documents, known to scholars as "the Marco Polo Maps" since 1948, here discussed fully for the first time.

The East, the West, and Sex

The East, the West, and Sex
Author: Richard Bernstein
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2010-07-27
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0375713891

In this wide-ranging history, Richard Bernstein explores the connection between sex and power as it has played out between Eastern cultures and the Western explorers, merchants, and conquerors who have visited them. This illuminating book describes the historical and ongoing encounter between these travelers and the morally ambiguous opportunities they found in foreign lands. Bernstein’s narrative teems with real figures, from Marco Polo and his investigation into the harem of Kublai Khan; the nineteenth-century American missionary Isabella Thoburn and her efforts to stamp out the “sinfulness” of the Mughal culture of India; Gustave Flaubert and his dalliances with Egyptian prostitutes; to modern-day sex tourists in Southeast Asia, as well as the women that they both exploit and enrich. Provocative and insightful, The East, The West, and Sex is a lucid look at a pervasive and yet mostly ignored subject.

Mission to China

Mission to China
Author: Mary Laven
Publisher:
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2012
Genre: China
ISBN: 9780571225187

An epic history of the clashes of cultures between Jesuit missionaries in China.

The City of Light

The City of Light
Author: Jacob D'Ancona
Publisher: Citadel Press
Total Pages: 580
Release: 2003
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780806524634

In 1270, Jewish scholar-merchant Jacob d'Ancona embarked on a remarkable voyage from his native Italy to Zaitun, the city of light, a vast coastal metropolis in southern China. His manuscript, hidden from the world for centuries, provides a first-person insight into life in the 13th century. It describes a thriving mercantile economy, whose vigorous manufacture and lavish consumption in the shadow of the impending Mongol invasion represent the swansong of a wealthy, decadent and surprisingly "modern" society. Jacob d'Ancona's participation as a foreign trader in the grand civic debates shed light on the relationship of Jews and Christians and the role of the individual in society.--Amazon.com.

Did Marco Polo Go To China?

Did Marco Polo Go To China?
Author: Frances Wood
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 185
Release: 2018-06-19
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0429980620

We all ?know? that Marco Polo went to China, served Ghengis Khan for many years, and returned to Italy with the recipes for pasta and ice cream. But Frances Wood, head of the Chinese Department at the British Library, argues that Marco Polo not only never went to China, he probably never even made it past the Black Sea, where his family conducted business as merchants.Marco Polo's travels from Venice to the exotic and distant East, and his epic book describing his extraordinary adventures, A Description of the World, ranks among the most famous and influential books ever published. In this fascinating piece of historical detection, marking the 700th anniversary of Polo's journey, Frances Wood questions whether Marco Polo ever reached the country he so vividly described. Why, in his romantic and seemingly detailed account, is there no mention of such fundamentals of Chinese life as tea, foot-binding, or even the Great Wall? Did he really bring back pasta and ice cream to Italy? And why, given China's extensive and even obsessive record-keeping, is there no mention of Marco Polo anywhere in the archives?Sure to spark controversy, Did Marco Polo Go to China? tries to solve these and other inconsistencies by carefully examining the Polo family history, Marco Polo's activities as a merchant, the preparation of his book, and the imperial Chinese records. The result is a lucid and readable look at medieval European and Chinese history, and the characters and events that shaped this extraordinary and enduring myth.

China to Chinatown

China to Chinatown
Author: J.A.G. Roberts
Publisher: Reaktion Books
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2004-07-04
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1861896182

China to Chinatown tells the story of one of the most notable examples of the globalization of food: the spread of Chinese recipes, ingredients and cooking styles to the Western world. Beginning with the accounts of Marco Polo and Franciscan missionaries, J.A.G. Roberts describes how Westerners’ first impressions of Chinese food were decidedly mixed, with many regarding Chinese eating habits as repugnant. Chinese food was brought back to the West merely as a curiosity. The Western encounter with a wider variety of Chinese cuisine dates from the first half of the 20th century, when Chinese food spread to the West with emigrant communities. The author shows how Chinese cooking has come to be regarded by some as among the world’s most sophisticated cuisines, and yet is harshly criticized by others, for example on the grounds that its preparation involves cruelty to animals. Roberts discusses the extent to which Chinese food, as a facet of Chinese culture overseas, has remained differentiated, and questions whether its ethnic identity is dissolving. Written in a lively style, the book will appeal to food historians and specialists in Chinese culture, as well as to readers interested in Chinese cuisine.

Idols in the East

Idols in the East
Author: Suzanne Conklin Akbari
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2012-04-05
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0801464978

Representations of Muslims have never been more common in the Western imagination than they are today. Building on Orientalist stereotypes constructed over centuries, the figure of the wily Arab has given rise, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, to the "Islamist" terrorist. In Idols in the East, Suzanne Conklin Akbari explores the premodern background of some of the Orientalist types still pervasive in present-day depictions of Muslims—the irascible and irrational Arab, the religiously deviant Islamist—and about how these stereotypes developed over time. Idols in the East contributes to the recent surge of interest in European encounters with Islam and the Orient in the premodern world. Focusing on the medieval period, Akbari examines a broad range of texts including encyclopedias, maps, medical and astronomical treatises, chansons de geste, romances, and allegories to paint an unusually diverse portrait of medieval culture. Among the texts she considers are The Book of John Mandeville, The Song of Roland, Parzival, and Dante's Divine Comedy. From them she reveals how medieval writers and readers understood and explained the differences they saw between themselves and the Muslim other. Looking forward, Akbari also comes to terms with how these medieval conceptions fit with modern discussions of Orientalism, thus providing an important theoretical link to postcolonial and postimperial scholarship on later periods. Far reaching in its implications and balanced in its judgments, Idols in the East will be of great interest to not only scholars and students of the Middle Ages but also anyone interested in the roots of Orientalism and its tangled relationship to modern racism and anti-Semitism.