Many scholars still debate whether Marco Polo did, in fact, travel to China or instead plagiarize his information about China from Arabic and Persian sources. Polo was perhaps the first European Orientalist, or scholar of Asian cultures, and helped to spread a possibly inaccurate view of Asian societies as exotic and impenetrable to Westerners. Teachers can encourage their students to compare excerpts of Marco Polo's account with excerpts of Medieval Chinese chronicles and to give their own take on Polo's authenticity. Students could also replicate the writing of a "first-person" account from other people's explorations by looking through National Geographic articles and writing their own fictional "first-person" accounts.
Marco Polo's accounts give students a window not only into the history of the societies he traveled through, but into the history of Medieval Europe and of his home country of Italy. The Italy of Polo's time was not a unified country, but rather a patchwork of small, warring city-states. Marco Polo's own life was impacted by these wars when he was taken prisoner by the Genoese upon returning from his travels. Medieval Italy is also considered the cradle of capitalism and commercial society, as a thriving middle class of merchants like Polo and his father sought to advance in the world. Teachers could have students examine other Italian merchants' accounts and write a sample itinerary of what a merchant's average day might look like in Medieval Venice.
Marco Polo's route to Cathay, or China, mostly followed the ancient trading route between Western Europe and the Far East, known as the Silk Road. As far back as the time of the Roman Empire, daring merchants braved the dangers of remote areas of the world to bring back silk and other commodities that were unknown in the West. Marco Polo's travels provide slices of life along this road, which passes through areas like modern-day Iraq, Iran, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and the Tibetan plateau. Students can find documentaries on present-day life in these areas and note the ways in which these regions have changed or not changed since Polo's time.
Marco Polo was an amateur ethnographer, observing unfamiliar cultures, documenting them and returning his accounts to Westerners. Interestingly, unlike the explorers of Christopher Columbus' time, who often depicted the natives of the New World as primitive and barbaric, Polo took pains to emphasize China's sophistication and material splendor. Some speculate that Polo may have been trying to enhance his own image as an authority on this strange, advanced culture so different from the West. Students can explore this idea by goimg through modern works of ethnography and inquiring whether modern ethnographers interpret the customs and artifacts of unfamiliar societies in a positive or a negative way.