Customer Reviews

Marco Polo: A Photographer's Journey

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Michael Yamashita used Marco Polo and the Discovery of the World (Yale Nota Bene) as a guidebook, and spent two years traveling more than 6,000 miles. He journeyed through Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, China, Pamirs, Xanadu, Sichuan, Yunnan, Tibet, Sumatra and Indonesia, and then returned to Italy by way of Vietnam, Sri Lanka and India.

Yamashita shot over 10,000 frames, a selection of which were first published in an 80-page, three-part series in "National Geographic" magazine. Marco Polo: A Photographer's Journey contains 258 photographs accompanied by Marco Polo's words from "The Description of the World."

Yamashita describes the genesis of the book for AAJA:

'The idea came from a book review about Frances Wood's book, Did Marco Polo Go To China? I thought, "This is interesting. I never questioned Marco Polo."

'His name is a household name around Asia. So I thought, "Let's get to the bottom of it." I did the necessary research. The last time [National] Geographic tackled the story was in 1926. The name of the story was titled: "Marco Polo: World's Greatest Overland Traveler." I thought was a pretty catchy line.

'I thought, "Isn't that a great idea for a story? Let's prove once and for all that Marco made this trip." There happened to be a window of opportunity when you could travel through places like Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran, which had just opened up. Iraq was always closed from the last gulf war at the time. This was 1999. We applied to all of those places, and they gave us permission to come because we were shooting Marco Polo, which was seemed like a non-political story.'

The book has proven to be a world wide best seller, and has been translated into several languages. The photography is excellent and the book itself is a delight to hold and dream about traveling, perhaps in Marco Polo's footsteps, but certainly in Yamashita's.

Robert C. Ross 2008

Millions of tourists visit Venice and Beijing every year. Only a tiny fraction of that number visits the vast territory between those cities. This book makes the case that you really should think about visiting central Asia as well. This is the land that Marco Polo allegedly traveled in back in the day. This book has a small amount of text describing the historical and present culture in these countries, but the focus of this book is hundreds of fantastically beautiful photographs. The photos show you the cities and the landscapes, but like all National Geographic photographers, Michael Yamashita focuses on the people and culture of this region. This is exactly what you would see (or at least should try to see) if you visit central Asia. This book is not really about Marco Polo, but he does use Marco Polo's story to give context to the photos; showing you how the cities and cultures vary as you proceed along Macro Polo's route. With over 500 pages of glossy photos, this is a hefty hardcover book, with a very reasonable price for what you are getting.

Very facinating. I've always been interested in Marco Polo, as has the author. He really leads you through the journey and makes you wonder at the courage Marco Polo had for his travels.

Good photos and details. Purchased as a gift for my wife and she is totally pleased