Description: Ardent explorers and adventurers Belliveau and O'Donnell have followed Marco Polo's route from beginning to end, artfully weaving their own adventures with Polo's descriptions and experiences. Color photos throughout.
Review Quotes:
"Denis Belliveau and Francis O'Donnell followed Marco Polo's route through Afghanistan and twenty other countries, traveling 33,000 miles over two years, in jeeps, trains, and rickshaws, on horse and camel. They are certainly the first to retrace Polo's steps entirely by land and sea, all this without resorting to helicopters or airplanes." --Smithsonian Magazine
"The stunning photographs in this elegant book should please even the most casual reader, while the authors' unpretentious observations will satisfy those who want to know more about a still alien world. A travel/adventure book rather than a study of Marco Polo the man or a history of his travels, this volume deserves many readers. Warmly recommended." --Library Journal "Alongside Belliveau and O'Donnell's enthusiastic narrative are marvelous full-color photos that bring the travelogue to vivid life." --Publishers Weekly "We are given stunning proof of Marco Polo's essential veracity, for the geographic realities and enduring ethnographic facts overwhelm any doubt. . . . They reflect poignantly on the timeless nature of the many Asian cultures they encountered, so many of them threatened by endless conflict. . . . When what you experience exceeds what you can imagine, the physical and spiritual costs can be very high. Is it worth it? Get this book, go along for the wild ride, and see for yourself." --Bookpage "If you missed the PBS special, you can still join the authors on their two-year, 25,000-mile journey that retraced the route of young Polo, his father and his uncle. The text is illuminating, the photos are revealing." --Sacramento Bee "An extraordinary travel book. . . . This is a book well worth reading, filled as it is with adventurous stories and wonderful photographs taken by Belliveau. . . . The book is a touching record of the beauty and charity of the human spirit, a charity undeterred by want, hunger, war, and grief." --Foreword Reviews "[A] lush, stimulating, and often thrilling chronicle. . . . The text is well written and highly informative, and it conveys a sense of wonder and excitement, enhanced by hundreds of excellent photographs that reveal the past and present diversity and richness of the cultures. . . . This excellent work and companion to the public-television film is a valuable introduction to the life and times of one of the world's great adventurers." --Booklist "Stunningly evocative photography. . . . Chapters are framed with compelling and/or illuminating adventures along the way. . . . Historical/literary referencing is braided with camera-eye accounts of the Americans crossing borders illegally, getting caught in a firefight between warlords, speaking carefully with tribal chieftains and brawling with drunken Russian soldiers in the dining room of the Hotel Alootoo in Bishtek, Kyrgyzstan. All in all, a blend of fun, learning and thrills." --Macon Telegraph "Belliveau and O'Donnell undertook a mad quest to trace the route of the 13th-century Italian explorer step by step. . . . Belliveau's incredible photographs . . . are worth lingering over and revisiting. The text is . . . fascinating when the travelers describe the people they meet along the road." --Flagpole Magazine "An extraordinary initiative and travel experience. They set out to demonstrate that Marco Polo actually spent twenty-five years in Asia and reported first-hand about all the wonders he had seen, and I think that after Francis' and Denis' experience few people could still have doubts in this regard." --Stefano Carboni, Metropolitan Museum of Art "It was the best-documented journey of its time, inspiring the imaginations and ambitions of countless adventurers, including Christopher Columbus. Now we, too, can follow in the footsteps of Marco Polo, with guides as vividly exciting and engaging as Marco himself. With both their film and this book Denis and Francis have recreated what Joseph Campbell would have applauded as 'The Hero's Journey.' Come take it yourself-and you'll never turn back." --Bill Moyers "Denis Belliveau and Francis O'Donnell have turn[ed] the coolest vacation idea ever into a film. . . . Back in 1993 these two men, friends from Queens, decided it would be fun to try to follow the trail supposedly blazed by Polo more than 700 years ago. It was a brash concept, since that trail is thousands of miles long and goes through places like Afghanistan and Iran. Add in that the men vowed to spurn air travel and were sort of making things up as they went along, and you have a delicious, self-imposed obstacle course. . . . Fun, derring-do . . . and heart is what Mr. Belliveau and Mr. O'Donnell give you as they recount their remarkable journey. (Praise for the public television film)" --The New York Times