Ancient Travels in Eurasia

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that, in 1295, when famed explorer Marco Polo returned to Europe after twenty-five years spent traveling throughout Eastern Eurasia, the tales of magnificent wealth and flourishing societies he related forever altered the way that Europeans considered the lands beyond the borders of Christendom. The author also points out that, in 1543, St. Francis Xavier, a missionary from Portugal, traveled to India for the purpose of spreading the doctrine of the Catholic Church. The paper observes that the writings of Xavier present a clear tone of disdain and disgust. The paper then stresses that, while Marco Polo observed the cultures of China from the political and economic perspective of a merchant, St. Francis Xavier approached the people and cultures he met with a prejudicial, ethnocentric point of view.

From the Paper:

"The European world that Marco Polo left behind when he embarked upon his expedition to the East in the mid-thirteenth century was one characterized by an uneducated populous, economic subsistence, and religious and political disunity. It is perhaps because of this that he perceived the lands of the East with such reverence. Although China in the thirteenth century was a strikingly different place than Europe in this time, in his account of his experiences Polo speaks of the religious, economic, and political structures of the country with great awe and respect, rarely passing any prejudicial or negative judgment upon the institutions of the East."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Marco Polo: Travels in China, 1254-1324" Modern History Sourcebook (http://acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~phalsall/texts/marcopolo.html)
• "Marco Polo: The Glories of Kinsay, 1300", Medieval Sourcebook, (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/polo-kinsay.html)
• "St. Francis Xavier, Letter from India, to the Society of Jesus at Rome, 1543" Modern History Sourcebook (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1543xavier1.html).

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