As the first European to travel extensively throughout Asia, Marco Polo was the earliest bridge between East and West. His famous journeys took him across the boundaries of the known world, along the dangerous Silk Road, and into the court of Kublai Kahn, where he won the trust of the most feared and reviled leader of his day. Polo introduced the cultural riches of China to Europe, spawning centuries of Western fascination with Asia.

 

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A biography of the famous explorer, Marco Polo. Marco Polo was seventeen when he set out for China . . . and forty-one when he came back! More than seven hundred years ago, Marco Polo traveled from the medieval city of Venice to the fabled kingdom of the great Kublai Khan, seeing new sights and riches that no Westerner had ever before witnessed. But did Marco Polo experience the things he wrote about . . . or was it all made-up?

"In this title, readers will explore routes to Asia with John Cabot. Follow Cabot's journey on two voyages seeking the Northwest Passage. Along the way he surveys the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, and discovers the Grand Banks."--

Recounts the life of the great explorer who traveled more than thirty thousand miles by land and sea from Italy to China in the thirteenth century, and who was instrumental in opening up the East to Europeans.