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Title:
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The Road to the Middle Kingdom: China’s New Silk Road
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Author:
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Perry Arrasmith
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Source:
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Harvard Political Review
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Date:
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January 25, 2018
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Description:
- Marco Polo’s visit to the court of Kublai Khan irrevocably changed the way the Venetian merchant perceived the world. While residing in the court of the Khan, Polo likely learned that the name of the Khan’s dominion, ‘Zhongguo,’ translated into ‘Middle Country.’ “I tell you,” Polo wrote, “no day in the year passes that there do not enter the city 1,000 carts of silk alone, from which are made quantities of cloth and silk and gold, and of other goods.” With riches flowing into the Khan’s empire from the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and Central Asia, it was not wonder some truly thought it to be the center of the world.
