Like other reviewers I chose this book for the inane reason that it begins with the letter X and I have an A-Z challenge to complete, but unlike others it seems I was pleasantly surprised. John Man is clearly very knowledgeable regarding Mongolia and China especially in the 13th through 17th centuries, and as well as his knowledge his passion shines through in this book. 

The structure of the book took a bit of getting used to and I found myself frustrated after a hundred pages or so trying to understand if this was supposed to be the story of Marco Polo, or a history of Kubilai Kahn’s Mongolia since it seemed to be an uncoordinated mix of both. After the first section though it got a lot smoother, and it became clear that this is a book of Marco Polo’s journey and life interspersed with sections on the world he lived in from reliable sources, and introspections about the veracity of his works. 

Despite the authors obvious love for Marco Polo’s work, he shows various counts where he is inaccurate and appears to remain relatively unbiased. The last few chapters go a long way to explain why there were so many inaccuracies in Marco’s work and were extremely interesting. I would say rather than following a chronological narrative, hinting at the reasons, as was done here, it would have been better to start with these last few chapters to give context behind how the original was written. 

Like a lot of nonfiction books a lot of my rating comes down to whether it inspires me to read more on the subject, and this case it has achieved that goal. I had no interest in the subject going in but now I want to know more about Marco Polo, and I’d love to read once of the early translations of the book even knowing based on the description in the last few chapters it would be a painful read.