Saffron Roads and Silk Lies
The Wild, Wondrous World of Marco Polo
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Voyages & Ventures is a vivid narrative series chronicling history’s greatest journeys – not just the paths they took, but the obsessions, blunders, bargains, and beautiful delusions that carried explorers beyond the map’s edge. Told with wit, empathy, and precision, each volume reveals not only what these voyagers discovered, but what they invented in the telling.
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Saffron Roads and Silk Lies: The Wild, Wondrous World of Marco Polo is the spellbinding account of a merchant’s son who left Venice at seventeen and returned twenty-four years later, transformed into the West’s most controversial travel writer. Blending deep historical research with the pace and verve of a great epic, this book follows Marco Polo through the bustling markets of the Levant, across the deserts of Persia, over the ice-bound heights of the Pamirs, and straight into the dazzling heart of Kublai Khan’s court.
Far more than a chronicle of sights seen and miles crossed, Saffron Roads and Silk Lies reveals the systems that kept an empire spinning – its paper money, postal networks, tax collectors, salt traders, and spies. It unpacks the Mongol genius for organization, the everyday brilliance of provincial governance, and the shock Marco felt upon discovering that the world beyond Europe was not only bigger but, in many ways, better run.
With sharp humor and grounded insight, the book explores Marco’s transformation from wide-eyed traveler to imperial official, from awkward observer to cultural translator. We travel with him through deadly sea voyages, unlikely diplomatic missions, and the slow, uncertain journey home. We see a man who survived shipwrecks and court intrigue, and who – decades later – tried to make the West believe the impossible truth of what he saw.
Rich with detail, skeptical without cynicism, and told in prose as clear as a mountain pass, this is not Marco Polo the myth. This is Marco Polo the man: shrewd, stubborn, and straddling civilizations. Whether you're a history lover, an armchair adventurer, or someone simply curious about how the medieval world really worked, Saffron Roads and Silk Lies offers both a gripping tale and a new map – drawn not in ink, but in lived experience.