Copy of Latin Christendom's Contact with Asia

Seminar Questions

Was Latin Christendom's contact with Asia largely a result of the spread of international trade?
Why were Western Europeans so eager to make contact with the Mongols?
Were European attitudes towards Asians primarily built on fictions?

Documents

John of Monte Corvino, Letter to the Minister General of the Friars Minor in Rome, c. 1280
Marco Polo on the Tartars
Marco Polo: The Glories Of Kinsay [Hangchow] (c. 1300)Link opens in a new window [Description of the Great City of Kinsay and Further Particulars Concerning the Great City of Kinsay]

Introductory Reading

Barber, The Two CitiesLink opens in a new window, 458-461

Bartlett, The Making of EuropeLink opens in a new window, 236-242, 269-314

Waley and Denley, Later Medieval EuropeLink opens in a new window, 280-291

E-Resources

Silk Road SeattleLink opens in a new window (an extensive collection of documents and images as well as an interactive map)
The Miami University Silk Road ProjectLink opens in a new window (includes films)
Genghis KhanLink opens in a new window In Our Time. BBC Radio programme, Thursday 1 February 2007.
'Swimming Dragons'. BBC Radio programme, Friday 3 June 2005. See also The '1421' Myth Exposed.
Global Middle Ages

Further Reading

Asia

Abulafia, David, 'Asia, Africa and the Trade of Medieval Europe'Link opens in a new window, in M.M. Postan et al. (eds.), The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, vol. 2: Trade and Industry in the Middle Ages, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 402-473.

Amitai-Preiss, Reuven, and David O. Morgan, (eds), The Mongol Empire and its Legacy (Leiden, 2000)

Franke, H., and Twitchett, D. (eds.), Cambridge History of China, vol. 6, Alien Regimes and Border States 907-1368 (Cambridge, 1994)

Franke, H., China under Mongol Rule (Aldershot, 1994)

de Hartog, Leo, Genghis Khan: Conqueror of the World (London, 2004)

Larner, John, Marco Polo and the Discovery of the World (New Haven, 1999)

Levathes, Louise, When China Ruled the Seas: The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne (New York, 1994)

Menzies, Gavin, 1421 : the Year China Discovered the World (London, 2002) [See also The '1421' Myth ExposedLink opens in a new window]

Polo, Marco, The Travels, trans. Robert Latham (Harmondsworth, 1965)

Russell, Peter, Prince Henry 'the Navigator': A Life (New Haven, 2000)

Subrahmanyam, Sanjay, The Career and Legend of Vasco da Gama (Cambridge, 1998)

Turnbull, Stephen, The Ottoman Empire, 1326-1699Link opens in a new window (London, 2003)

Wood, Frances, Did Marco Polo Go to China? (London, 1995) [See also Igor de Rachewiltz, 'F. Wood's Did Marco Polo Go To China? A Critical AppraisalLink opens in a new window']

European Views of the Wider World

Allen, John L., 'Lands of Myth, Waters of Wonder: The Place of the Imagination in the History of Geographical Exploration'Link opens in a new window, in Geographies of the Mind: Essays in Historical Geosophy, ed. David Lowenthal and Martyn J. Bowden (New Yorks, 1976), pp. 41-61.

Campbell, Mary B., The Witness and the Other World: Exotic European Travel Writing, 400-1600Link opens in a new window (Ithaca, NY, 1988)

Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome, 'On Saracen Enjoyment: Some Fantasies of Race in Late Medieval France and England'Link opens in a new window, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 31 no. 1 ( 2001), 113-46.

Friedman, John Block. The Monstrous Races in Medieval Art and Thought (Cambridge, Mass., 1981) [pp. 178-196 onlineLink opens in a new window]

Lomperis, Linda, 'Medieval Travel Writing and the Question of Race'Link opens in a new window, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 31 no. 1 ( 2001), 147-164.

Mandeville, Sir John, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, trans. C.W.R.D. Moseley (Harmondsworth, 1983)

Mandeville, John, The Book of John MandevilleLink opens in a new window, ed. Tamarah Kohanski and C. David Benson (Kalamazoo, MI, 2007)

Polo, Marco, The Travels, trans. Robert Latham (Harmondsworth, 1965)

Strickland, Debra Higgs, 'Monsters and Christian Enemies'Link opens in a new window, History Today 50 (2000), 45-51.

Wittkower, Rudolf, 'Marvels of the East: A Study in the History of Monsters'Link opens in a new window, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 5 (1942): 159-197.

Wood, Frances, Did Marco Polo Go to China? (London, 1995) [See also Igor de Rachewiltz, 'F. Wood's Did Marco Polo Go To China? A Critical AppraisalLink opens in a new window']