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In Xanadu by: William Dalrymple List Price: CDN$ 19.95 City Travel Guides Price: CDN$ 14.56 You Save: CDN$5.39 (27%)Prices subject to change. |
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Binding: Paperback Dewey Decimal Number: 910 EAN: 9780006544159 ISBN: 0006544150 Label: HarperCollins Canada / Trade Manufacturer: HarperCollins Canada / Trade Number Of Pages: 320 Publication Date: November 01, 1990 Publisher: HarperCollins Canada / Trade Studio: HarperCollins Canada / Trade Sales Rank: 95870 Related Items:
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 Rating: - A modern-day epic journeyThis is an excellent first book by someone who's made quite a name for himself in travel writing - William Dalrymple. "In Xanadu" relates his journey following in the footsteps of Marco Polo to Xanadu, the old capital of the Mongolian empire. This was accomplished while he was a student at Cambridge and he got the idea because this was the first time most of the Karakorum highway was open to travellers, enabling him to follow about 80% of Polo's route for the first time in centuries. The author (with two friends, one for wach half of the journey) went from Jerusalem through Cyprus, Syria, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and China. Throughout his journey he researched the traces of Marco Polo and the other aspects of history. As such, ... Read More: Rating: - In XanaduI enjoyed the reviews of this book, pretty funyy. This is a pretty good travel book; I like travel writing and have read a lot of it. Dalrymple's work is as good as anyone else. In addition to this, I recommend Caroline Alexander's "The Way to Xanadu." Dalrymple follows Marco Polor to Xanadu; Alexander follows Coleridge. Both end up at the same place, but follow very different routes to get there. Dalrymple follows Marco Polo's route along the silk road and he shares some pretty interesting history of all the places he visits. Alexander visits the places mentioned in Coleridge's diary in the period just before he wrote the fragment of a poem about Xanadu, which leads her to a variety of places including Florida, amazingly enough. Rating:  - a total messI bought this after reading Dalrymple's Age of Kali. Sadly, as excellent as that book is, this one is a total mess. First of all, there is way way too much extra info on things unconnected to Polo's trek along the Silk Road. You basically need a degree in the History of the Middle Ages to figure out the obscure references. I got the idea Dalrymple was showing off. Considering he supposedly knows all this arcane stuff, how come this obvious well-educated guy spends much of his trip searching for people who speak English to help him? Did he not use his vastly developed cranium to think of buying a few phrasebooks before heading out? Add to this he is, for want of a better word and no hate mail please, pussywhipped by the two females he ... Read More: Rating: - An Amazing First BookErudite,funny, exciting, and amazing in its author's breadth of knowledge - especially considering his youth. Much enhanced by the attitudes of his female co-adventurers. Rating:  - Excellent writingLike all of Dalrymple's books to date, this early one is rich in scholarship, which is spoon fed to the reader in the author's inimitable style. Buy it! |
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