One of the questions I've always asked is, how does the world becomes the one I see? Well, we all know science and the subsequent technologies play a large role in recent centuries. Less known are the driving forces in earlier centuries. Well, religion as well as the quest for power and money "locally" has always been the invincible forces behind all kinds of development, but of no less importance are those defining moments across different cultures that in hindsight, inspire people of power and of learning so much the system of thoughts has to be changed to accommodate the new found knowledge of some previously unknown worlds.
Marco Polo's travels should be one of these. And so is the Mongols' quest of the world -- however short it was, the impact was global and long-lasting. The people in the steppes, the forgotten central Asians and the nomadic tribes, indeed play more roles in history than a lot of people realized. (a view obtained from David Christian's A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia)
Historians always ask why the East lags behind the West these few centuries. But I actually wanna know how come the true center of the world, the middle east, isn't getting any better even with its importance in history? It looks to me the forgotten region in the world..
No wonder the muslims are bombing everywhere.. Well, perhaps they just need some attention..
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Italo Calvino's visionary discourse, the Invisible Cities (Le Citta Invisibili), between Kublai Khan and Marco Polo, is what drives me to read "the Travels".. but of course it is an interesting book in its own right..
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