Marco Polo - Laurence Bergreen [206]
Dr. Sarah Schlesinger of Rockefeller University generously outlined the prevalence of tuberculosis in Marco’s time, and the ramifications of the illness as he may have experienced it in Afghanistan.
CHAPTER FIVE / High Plains Drifters
Concerning asbestos, see Joseph Needham’s Science and Civilisation in China, volume 3, page 660. As Needham demonstrates, the Chinese were aware of asbestos for centuries, calling the material, not inaccurately, “stone veins.”
Of the Pamir, Dr. James B. Garvin, NASA’s chief scientist, and a geologist by training, notes, “Because of the arid environment, lack of human degradation of the landscape, [and] spectacular exposures of the effects of recent earthquakes and of the uplift of the mountain, this area is a premier natural laboratory for the investigation of…significant [geological] problems.”
CHAPTER SIX / The Secret History of the Mongols
Carpini’s account of life among the Mongols is drawn from Christopher Dawson’s The Mongol Mission, page 37. Vassaf’s observation can be found in the History of Vassaf, volume 1. The work dates from 1302. Shoaib Harris translated.
The various English translations of The Secret History of the Mongols differ dramatically from one another. Those wishing to learn more about this remarkable document would do well to compare them all. Among the more significant are the translation by Francis Woodman Cleaves; a verse adaptation by Paul Kahn; and the extraordinarily detailed rendering by Igor de Rachewiltz. I have relied on the English-language version by Urgunge Onon, published in Mongolia in 2005, which appears faithful to the letter and spirit of the original saga. My thanks to Nomin Lkhagvasuren for bringing it to my attention. The stanza quoted can be found on page 110.
Nicholas Wade in The New York Times quoted Juvaini on Genghis Khan; see “A Prolific Genghis Khan, It Seems, Helped People the World,” February 11, 2003. Chris Tyler-Smith’s “The Genetic Legacy of the Mongols” sheds light on Genghis Khan’s many descendants.
The evocative description of the Mongol conception of the soul comes from A. C. Moule and Paul Pelliot’s edition of Marco Polo, The Description of the World, volume 1 (reprinted 1976), pages 257–258. The quotations from David Morgan and from Juvaini are drawn from Morgan’s The Mongols, page 55. For a detailed analysis of the Chinese and Mongol military systems, see Chi’-Ch’ing Hsiao, The Military Establishment of the Yüan Dynasty.
The Mongol recipes offered here can be found (along with other dishes) in Paul Buell’s “Pleasing the Palate of the Qan.” But there is more to say about the Mongol diet and its effect on Mongol dynastic history. In “Dietary Decadence and Dynastic Decline in the Mongol Empire,” John Masson Smith Jr. offers a drastically different assessment of the healthiness of the Mongol diet. “Most Mongol rulers lived short lives,” he states. “Those in the Middle East died, on average, at about age 38, and the successors of Qubilai raised the ages, since he lived, atypically, for 78 years [sic]; Chinggis lived into his 60s; for the rest, few passed 50.” Smith blames the Mongols’ lack of longevity on “dietary inadequacies and improprieties,” by which he means too much mutton, mare’s milk, and alcohol, and not enough of other foods. He cites Marco Polo’s statistics as evidence, in part, of the Mongols’ tendency toward excess. They were, in short, eating and drinking themselves to death.
CHAPTER SEVEN / The Universal Emperor
Bar Hebraeus’s praise of Sorghaghtani can be found in The Cambridge History of China, volume 6, page 414. My thanks to Professor S. Tsolmon of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences for outlining the four major population segments.
Morris Rossabi’s Khubilai Khan offers the best modern assessment of Kublai’s ascent to power. I have drawn especially from page 8 and