Historian Nicola Di Cosmo on Venice, the Mongols, and Marco Polo in China

Our Marco Polo episode was the most downloaded show in the history of By Their Own Compass. This week, we go deeper into the world of Marco and the Mongols as we sit down with Nicola Di Cosmo, Professor of East Asian Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and co-author of Venice and the Mongols, out this month from Princeton University Press, to talk about how the Mongol discovery of Europe (rather than the other way around) made Marco's journey possible in the first place. We also ask Professor Di Cosmo why Marco, one of the world's most famous travellers, came home from China and chose to skip out on an entire era of growing economic and political ties between Venice and the Mongols, preferring instead to promote his book and invest in canal-adjacent real estate. Finally, we find out how a slap to the face of a Venetian merchant in a Black Sea trading post might have been responsible for the Black Death reaching Europe. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bytheirowncompass.substack.com/subscribe