Voyager from Xanadu Rabban Sauma and the First Journey from China to the West [Paperback]

Toward the end of the thirteenth century, at about the time Marco Polo was being received by the great Khubilai Khan, a Nestorian Christian monk from China called Rabban Sauma was making the reverse journey from the Mongol capital (what is now Beijing) to Jerusalem. Upon reaching Baghdadthe first traveler to arrive from ChinaSauma learned that his pilgrimage could not be fulfilled because of Islamic control of the Holy Land. InVoyager from Xanadu,Morris Rossabi traces Saumas trans-Eurasian travels against the turbulent era of the Mongol Empire and the last Crusades. His indispensable book provides a unique first-hand Asian perspective on Europe and illuminates a crucial period in the early history of global, diplomatic, and commercial networking.

Morris Rossabiis Distinguished Professor of History, City University of New York, and Adjunct Professor of Chinese and Mongolian History at Columbia University. He is the author of many books, includingKhubilai Khan: His Life and Times(UC Press).

The story of Rabban Sauma's journey from Peking to Paris in the late thirteenth century is absorbing in its own right. But by his erudite commentary and fine evocation of context Morris Rossabi has given this adventure a wider scope, one that lets us ponder Marco Polo's travels from a reverse perspective, and thus gain a new focal point from which to start our studies of China and the Western world.Jonathan Spence, author ofThe Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci

A wonderful story which Morris Rossabi tells with scholarship and skill.Steven Runciman, author ofHistory of the Crusades

Voyager from Xanaduis fascinating reading; I sat down with it and read straight through, unable to put it down. Morris Rossabi draws on all his immense erudition and yet never lets it obscure his sensitive concern with the intensely human character of this story. He importantly illumines lost pages in the historló(