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Article: A Silk Road odyssey tries to find out if Marco Polo reached China.
- Article from:
- Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service
- Article date:
- November 3, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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XINJIANG, China _ For most Americans, the name Marco Polo conjures up images of exotic journeys. In the popular imagination, Marco Polo is the original explorer, an icon in the West of youthful spunk and the triumph of the entrepreneurial spirit.
He went to the East to make money, but he left us with a description of the world in the process. His tales of riches and exotic lands inspired Columbus and became the model for generations of explorers to follow. Columbus has fallen off his pedestal a bit in recent years, with assertions that he not only didn't ``discover'' America, but probably killed and enslaved a few thousand Indians in the process.
Marco ...