Silk, Porcelain, and Paradise on Earth

Trade breaks through all geographic, linguistic, religious, and political boundaries, bringing Eastern and Western civilizations together and making humanity’s shared ideals a reality.

Marco Polo was unquestionably a pioneer of globalization. The first traveler and merchant in human history to reach China by the overland Silk Road and return to Europe by the maritime Silk Road, he opened the door to the mysterious East for all of Europe. His accounts stirred Europeans’ desire for wealth and curiosity about foreign civilizations, directly helping usher in the Age of Discovery. Columbus, on each of his four voyages to the New World, carefully kept a copy of The Travels of Marco Polo with him.

The author, Laurence Bergreen, has carefully studied more than a hundred surviving biographies of Marco Polo, consulted firsthand sources in six languages, and personally retraced and vividly recreated Marco Polo’s great adventures along the Silk Road. He seeks to answer the long-standing questions surrounding Marco Polo and his legendary journey. Seen in the context of world history, Marco Polo was a trailblazer without equal, the only person to undertake a comprehensive grand tour of the ancient Belt and Road. He believed that what could overcome cultural differences and conflicts and bring people together was a broad and powerful force: humanity’s innate urge and instinct to trade.