EXPLORERS DO NOT thrive in captivity, so it must have stung when Marco Polo was imprisoned in Genoa in 1298. The length of his internment depended on the course of the city-state's war with his native Venice. But he did not waste it. "Rather than idle away time he decided to put together this book," explains the prologue of "The Travels" (in Nigel Cliff's translation). Written with Rus-tichello of Pisa, an author and fellow inmate, it is one of literature's great travelogues-a meandering voyage through the cultures and kingdoms of the Middle East, China, South-East Asia, India and Russia.
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