In his book Marco Polo was in China: New Evidence from Currencies, Salts and Revenues (Leiden: Brill, 2013) Hans Ulrich Vogel offers an innovative look at the highly complex topics of currencies, salt production and taxes, commercial levies and other kinds of revenue as well as the administrative geography of the Mongol Yuan empire. The author’s rigorous analysis of Chinese sources and all the important Marco Polo manuscripts as well as his thorough scrutiny of Japanese, Chinese and Western scholarship show that the fascinating information contained in Le devisament dou monde agrees almost perfectly with that we find in Chinese sources, the latter only available long after Marco Polo’s stay in China. Hence, the author concludes that, despite the doubts that have been raised, the Venetian was indeed in Khubilai Khan’s realm.
This book by Hans Ulrich Vogel (Fu Hansi 傅汉思) which is widely considered a milestone in recent Marco Polo research is now also available in a Chinese translation. The translation was carried out by three outstanding Chinese experts in Yuan history and Marco Polo research, that is, Dang Baohai 党宝海, Professor of History at Peking University, Mao Xiaolin 马晓林, Professor of History of Nankai University in Tianjin, and Zhou Sicheng 周思成, Professor of History, Tsinghua University in Beijing. The title of the book in Chinese is Make Boluo daoguo Zhongguo: Huobi, shiyan, shuishou de xinzheng 《马可·波罗到过中国：货币、食盐、税收的新证据》 and it was published in May 2022 by Peking University Press (Beijing daxue chubanshe 北京大学出版社).
About the original publication in English
Announcement of the Chinese translation
Chinese Reactions to the Publication
Further Chinese reactions to the publication
