Larner (Glasgow Univ.) has written an erudite, comprehensive, and very readable study of enigmatic Venetian Marco Polo, his book, and the book's impact on European culture. He first establishes the contexts--personal, European, and global--for Marco's travels, then carefully considers the vexed questions surrounding Marco's career (yes, he did travel to China) and the composition, authenticity, and intended audience of the book. Larner's conclusions are likely to be as definitive as such questions allow. Marco himself is drawn with much sympathy, and Larner demonstrates that Marco has left a dispassionate and largely truthful description of the world he either visited or learned about secondhand from sources at the Mongol court. Larner then traces the reception of the book from a "book of marvels" into the mainstream of European geographic knowledge, whence it contributed, indirectly albeit powerfully, to Columbus's voyages and the Age of Exploration, with continued vitality in later centuries. Larner includes an excellent selection of illustrations, mostly of contemporary maps, an appendix on the manuscript tradition, and an extensive bibliography. Highly recommended for all medieval and world history collections; upper-division undergraduates and above. S. Morillo; Wabash College

Marco Polo remains an enigmatic figure, and the authenticity and historical importance of his travels are controversial. While many historians still credit him for helping to inspire the Age of Discovery, some doubt he ever traveled to China, and others minimize the influence of his memoirs. Larner, professor emeritus of history at Glasgow University, clearly adheres to the former view. He acknowledges the difficulties inherent in validating Polo's claims, since his book, dictated to his cellmate, Rustichello da Pisa, is the only source of his adventures. Still, Larner engages in convincing suppositions and credible speculations based on generally accepted data on Europe, the Middle East, and the Mongol empire in the thirteenth century. He also presents fascinating insights into European attitudes toward "Cathay," and his probes into the identity of the mysterious Rustichello are bound to stimulate further inquiry. This is a highly readable and well-researched historical inquiry. --Jay Freeman

Larner (Culture and Society in Italy 1290-1420) focuses on the book that Marco Polo produced. After setting the stage, he introduces us to both Marco Polo and the man he believes was his coauthor, Rustichello da Pisa (whom Polo met when both were prisoners of the Genoese). He makes his case by arguing that the type of occupation-specific education that Polo, a member of Venice's mercantile class, had received before his journey to China would not have enabled him to write a literate narrative. Rustichello, on the other hand, was a minor author of literary romance, an ideal partner to sort out Polo's notes and arrange them into the work that captivated a generation. (Its geographical content, descriptions of Chinese cities and Mongol customs, and emphasis on the wealth of the East, Larner argues, inspired the Age of Discovery.) He also refutes Frances Wood's theory (in Did Marco Polo Go to China?, LJ 9/1/95) that he never went to China by presenting reasoned proof that he couldn't have been anywhere else for 24 years. Of interest to students and lay readers with an interest in history; for academic and larger public libraries.ÄRobert James Andrews, Duluth P.L., MN (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.