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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 Baghdad—the first traveler to arrive from China—Sauma learned that his pilgrimage could not be fulfilled because of Islamic control of the Holy Land. In Voyager from Xanadu, Morris Rossabi traces Sauma’s 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.
- Sales Rank: #1100642 in Books
- Published on: 2010-02-10
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.25" h x .63" w x 5.50" l, .66 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 248 pages
From Publishers Weekly
This is a dense, dazzlingly erudite overview of the complicated intrigues and upheavals of the 13th-century Mongol-Muslim-Christian worlds. For a framework, Rossabi ( Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times ) calls on the record left by Rabban Sauma, a Nestorian monk who in 1275 set out on a daring and dangerous pilgrimage from Peking to Jerusalem. Because Sauma's notes, much edited by their original translator, are fragmentary, Rossabi reconstructs what the traveler probably saw and experienced along his route and sets this in the religious and political background of the times. Interrupting his journey in Persia, Sauma was entrusted by the Mongol ruler to call on the pope and the Christian kings of the West to propose a joint crusade against their common enemy, the Muslims, who then held Jerusalem. Had this early attempt at an East-West alliance succeeded, speculates Rossabi, it might have changed world history. Illustrations.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
This slim volume by the author of Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times ( LJ 4/15/88) serves as an introduction to a little-known chapter in European-Mongol diplomatic relations. In the late 13th century, Sauma, a Nestorian Christian monk raised in China, traveled from the court of Kublai Khan to Persia. His pilgrimage turned into a diplomatic mission when the Mongol ruler Arghun sent him to Rome to seek an alliance against the Moslems. Rossabi (East Asian history, Columbia Univ.) takes the Syriac abridgment of Sauma's travel diary and, checking the account against contemporary sources, retraces his journey in the context of the volatile world political situation. Repeated lamentations that "we will never know the truth" serve only to frustrate the reader, and placements of some illustrations are inappropriate. Still, the book should pique interest among scholars and informed lay readers.
- Katharine L. Kan, Aiea P.L., Hawaii
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
Just when the adventurer Marco Polo discovered the East, an obscure 13th-century Chinese priest became the first Asian to travel from Peking to Paris. His tale, best suited for an epic, a romance quest, or a political parable at the very least, is presented here in an unimaginative academic narrative by Rossabi (East Asian History/ Columbia Univ. and Queens College; Khubilai Khan, 1988). A priest of the Nestorian sect (a heretical Christian group that flourished in the Far East), Rabban Sauma and his young disciple, Makros, set out on a religious pilgrimage financed by Khubilai Khan to collect relics and visit religious sites in the Holy Land. Recovering from the perils of the deserts and mountains of South China, the two paused in Baghdad, where Makros was elected Patriarch of the Church. Nearly ten years later, the Ilkhanate of Persia sent Rabban to engage the help of the Pope and the kings of France and England in mounting a Crusade to drive the Egyptian Muslims out of the Holy Land. Although the mission failed--the kings were unable to assist, and the Pope was unwilling unless Eastern Christians and their rulers submitted to the Roman Church- -Rabban visited many churches, celebrated mass at the Vatican, and brought relics such as a scrap of Jesus' clothing back to Baghdad, where the Ilkhanate built him a church. Rabban died in 1317; his papers were discovered in 1887. Here, Rossabi, who laments Rabban's ``failure'' to record things, buries the material he does have in pedantry and irrelevant erudition: After numerous perils, a travel- weary Chinese priest arrives in Paris and delights in what he believes are 30,000 students--and the author lengthily disputes the calculation while he overlooks the wonder of it all. Rabban, who surely deserves to be known, remains an echo in search of a voice. (Three maps; 15 b&w illustrations--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Great historical overview of a rather thin account
By sixquarters
"Voyager from Xanadu" is more about a theoretical voyage from China to Jerusalem than an actual one. Rossabi takes the true story of Rabban Sauma and, with a combination of original research and state-of-the-field summation of the political situation at each step of the way, reconstructs Rabban Sauma's purpose, his actions, and what he must have seen at each step. This is a solid work, and provides a real sense of the connections--and disconnections--between the various polities and cultures of Eurasia in the 13th century without becoming a textbook. Particularly interesting is the account of Rabban Sauma's stopover in Baghdad, where he and his pupil accidentally got involved with a number of palace coups and his pupil became the Metropolitan of the Nestorian Church. Rossabi skillfully draws out probable motivations for each of the actors and portrays with some humor the Ilkhanate usage of religion to control the state.
The book has, however, two flaws. The first is that for a book recounting the narrative of Rabban Sauma, Rossabi trusts almost nothing to the actual narrative of Rabban Sauma! Every sentence begins "Rabban Sauma omitted any mention of..." and "Rabban Sauma did not concern himself with describing...", where it does not begin "The Syriac translator's hagiographic point of view shines through here and it is doubtful Rabban Sauma ever actually..." What we're left with is the sense that Rabban Sauma's translators were right to focus purely on his religious significance, since his travelogue's political, cultural, and literary significance require such strenuous reconstruction. This might have been more understandable, since Rossabi is not at fault for the paucity of his source text, if not for the book's second flaw, its slightness. If Rossabi's research is more robust than Rabban Sauma's account, then he should have let us see more of the former.
Nevertheless, a quick and enjoyable take on an all-too-unstudied journey.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
A story well-told by a master!
By Roy Waidler
Morris Rossabi has done a remarkable and meticulous piece of scholarship with this book. In it he reconstructs the journey of a Nestorian Christian and his lifelong friend to the Christian west, sent as emissaries of the Mongol emperor of China, Kublai Khan, to hopefully meet with the heads of the churches and major players: the Pope, European monarchs, the Byzantines in Constantinople. It was a long and at times hazardous journey for te two. They were detained from their mission because of the political turmoil caused by the Islamic empires which were gaining control of the Levant. It was these very Islamic kingdoms that caused the Khan to send his ambassadors westward. Kublai Khan was aware that the Islamic upstarts could pose his reign some problems, a distant Kjan, the Ilkhan of Persia was having more immediate problems of the same sort. What the Great Khan proposed to the west was a military alliance against the Muslims but it was not to be. Rabban Sauma did get to meet the Pope and the kings of France and England, but never made it back home. Although he wrote a memoir of his journey, only a quite truncated version has come down to posterity, and the document is a trial for skilled Syriacists. In its place we have Rossabi's skillfull blending of not only Sauma's text, but material from his contemporaries as well. Across a number of cultures Professor Rossabi shows an ease and familiarity with their texts and histories and uses all of them to create an at times, quite gripping book.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
A story nearly lost is found again
By Curriculum Vitae
I must recomend this book. Proffesor Rossabi does a great job telling the story of this remarkable man and his journey, as a pilgrim and later ambassador of thw Mongols drawing from the limited surviving materials. Great for the casual history buff and the scholarly enthusiast due to a robust bibliography and extensive notes. A ripping good read all around.
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