About the book: 2011 / Modern travelers never dreamed of the dangers and miracles that the 13th century merchants faced on the Great Silk Road. Marco Polo was seventeen years old when he left his home in Venice and, with his father and uncle, set off on an unimaginably difficult journey to the court of Kublai Khan in Mongolia. They returned twenty-four years later, when no one believed that they were still alive. Later, the wanderings of Marco Polo were described in the “Book of the Diversity of the World.” Laurence Bergreen MARCO POLO: FROM VENICE TO XANADU Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. © Russian edition AST Publishers, 2011