Accidentally Inspiring Colonialism | Marco Polo
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- Опубліковано 5 вер 2024
- A merchant's travel guide, full of misremembered facts, embellishments, and fabrications completely altered the course of history.
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Great video!
It really goes to show that even when two channels inadvertently cover the same topic a week apart, there are still so many different aspects to discuss!
I'm glad I could lend my voice to this video as a medieval Google Maps :D
-Blue
eyyy, wassup bud, love your channel too
I really love your videos man
And they said Avengers Endgame was the biggest crossover of 2019
Us history youtubers don't really keep up with what each other is making, so this was bound to happen at some point. I'm just glad I was able to come at it from another angle!
Uhhh, I'm at 8 minutes and apparently this was commented 3 days ago... wtf?
"No guys I'm serious I was hanging out with some serious babes on my trip. I even have a girlfriend now....she lives in Cipangu...totally a real place."
@@gatorteg9315 early access
Interestingly, Japan seems to think they're Cipangu (or Zipangu as they call it) so I guess Marco Polo is just a big weeb.
Lol
@@CNNR_-iz9wc i identify as nissan
@@FishfaceTheDestroyer they think that because it's true
hey dude my book does not have fabrications, embellishments or dismembered facts. You will hear further from my lawyers.
A little to perfect 😂
Lol.
Marco Polo did you bring spaghetti (noodles) back to Italy?
oh shit watch out there's green salty water
Remember you didn’t write the book.
Listen, the reason I walk so fast is because every place I go is just a quick detour on the way to Hamid’s for some of that falafel I've read so much about...
I walk fast too. I also talk fast. And read fast. And watch youtube on 2x. My friends say I bike fast when I'm going slow. I can change clothes really fast. Maybe I'm just always in a rush.
@Leaving Blank wtf is wrong with you?
@Leaving Blank the hell ?
@@felixbeutin9530 what did @leaving blank do
@@xxbeans93xx76 dunno but i think it was something sexist
The real Travels of Marco Polo was the friends we made along the way
Jeeves Anthrozaur and thats what this is all about
The One piece*
The gold we bought along the way*
@@Missing_Nin i know its joke but oda says the treassure one piece is Physical thing
It would be silly for someone today to call a rhino a unicorn, but words shift meaning over time. Unicorn literally means one horn and this was before all those tapestries with the snow white horsey goaty critter were woven. At the time, the word fit the animal he saw.
Goaty? Which tapestries you been lookin at??!
@@L-mo Google "The Unicorn in Captivity," believed to be woven around 1500 and part of a series "The Hunt of the Unicorn." The unicorn has cloven hooves and a beard.
Unicorn? Means one horn? In what language?
@@7PlayingWithFire7 Middle English: via Old French from Latin unicornis, from uni-‘single’ + cornu‘horn’
7PlayingWithFire7 Middle Earth-ish
In his defense, a lot of temples are covered in gold and it would not take many reiterations to make some people claim they are made out of gold...
So The Travels of Marco Polo is basically The Hobbit.
Hey Mr. Beat
Fancy seeing you here
The trilogy or the original?
Because it seems to me like it's more like the trilogy.
Hey Mr Beat
Nice seeing you
I'm sure that when the English discovered New Zealand they had a copies of all of JRR Tolkien's works with them. Even though he wouldn't be born for a century or so.
In a hole in the ground there lived an Italian merchant...
The part about dogs in Siberia is a actually accurate. The Caucasian mountain dog has been breed in the Caucasus mountains for centuries. They're fairly common in Russia and Georgia are are notable for their large size and they were historically used for bear hunting.
3:00 In Biblical lore, the Ark is said to have landed in the Mountains of Ararat, far to the north of Mesopotamia. Armenia is mountainous country, including one Mt. Ararat.
If Marco Polo mentions this, he's probably just trying to create a frame of reference for the land by connecting it with places and events a medieval audience would already know about.
So should Tartar sauce be called Mongolian sauce?
now I am wondering how it got it's name. Why would you name a seafood sauce out of a landlocked nation hundreds of miles (if not thousands) from the sea?
Almost every Tartar lives in russia not in Mongolia
Hey... go to a Spanish supermarket in the states, and you'll notice:
-worcestshire sauce = English sauce
-soy sauce = soya or China sauce
@@otto_jk Nowadays, I'm sure you're correct.
Remember also that Poland used to only have the eastern half of modern-day Poland, but also the entirety of Belarus, most of Ukraine and a significant chunk of Europeän Russia, and that it had some variation of those borders for most of its history, even stretching back to when it was called Ruthenia.
You may even know that the Indo-Europeäns the people who now inhabit homelands across Europe, the Middle East, and northern India, originally had their homeland on the northwest shore of the Caspian.
The Mongols are ancestors not just of those who still bear their name or live in the same place, but of a variëty of peoples, including the modern-day Manchu, the anciënt Mughals of India, and the Uighurs of Xinjiang. People from the city of Rome are not the only descendants of the Romans.
@@Copyright_Infringement The Mongolians and Tartars are their own distinct ethnic groups. Your argument is as valid as calling the Belarussians Polish because historic Poland included modern Belarus.
Sea of Qin means Sea of China. The first Chinese dynasty was the Qin dynasty. Qin is also the origin of the word China
Gibil Gasser yeah I felt he could’ve done more research there
Qin was merely the first dynasty the romans had contact with, not the first dynasty. It is the origin of the name "China" though.
I think his problem was about it being written with a "Q"?
@@huge7800 Qin Shi Huangdi of Qin was the first emperor of China, making the Qin dynasty the first imperial dynasty
@@huge7800 and btw Romans had contact to the Han dynasty. The Qin dynasty was way before that time
12:43
Say what you will about this show, but casting Benedict Wong as Kublai Khan was a spark of genius.
How were u able to watch it yesterday?
Dafuq is this?
@@yannick245 patreon
@@kaylim9489 Ay, thanks!
How 1 day ago???
Marco Polo: China is amazing, except from the green salty water
ThomasTurner69 what is green salty water?
This isn’t too far off from algal blooms that occur due to polluting waters...which make you sick.
@@danials1447 algae?
Palestine is beautiful.
2019 internet historians: Reeeeeee
Cipangu has entire cities built of gold.
*Europeans have entered the chat*
Land: exists
Europeans: _It's free real state_
Spaniards have entered the chat
@@randommodnar7141 The Portuguese, French, English, German, Dutch have entered the chat
What you mean they didn’t just want to travel, discover new peoples, explore new places and make new friends? And boldly go where no white men had gone before??
@@L-mo Actually, that's pretty much what the French did for their first colonial empire. They didn't even fought the Indians. They allied to them and established fur trade with them. Except with the Iroquois of course... Those guys allied to the British, since they were enemies of the Indians that allied themselves with the French. The deal was basically that the French were a good way to act as a buffer with imperialistic UK. That went well until the American colonists helped the Brits winning against the French during the Seven Years War. Things went out very grim for the Indians afterwards...
7:52 "He also describes giraffes which he calls 'camelopards'". Yes, that's another word from giraffe that has Greek etymology, and seems like has been used in English in the past as well
7:57 Now here I am actually gonna defend Marco Polo. The word unicorn as we know it comes from the Latin “unicornis” meaning having one horn. Rhinos can also be called “Bicornis” meaning having two horns. Hell the scientific name for the Black rhino is“Diceros Bicornis”. What we currently know as a unicorn is a perversion of the word which was actually very commonly used in the past and did not refer to any kind of horse. TL;DR Unicorn is just a really old timey way of saying one-horned rhino. You know you really shouldn’t demonize a guy for something that’s not his fault. He spoke Medieval Venetian, probably heavily accented due to his time in Asia. I’m sure he’s guilty of some crimes but knowledge of 21st century English should certainly not be one of them
And there's an extinct variety of single-horned rhino that's scientific name translates to "Siberian unicorn".
I didn’t think he was demonizing Marco at all and he prefaces the video stating Marco was recalling places and events decades after they happened and he wasn’t even writing it himself. So I don’t think he blames Marco at all or anybody really just circumstances.
“Dogs to hunt tigers...somehow”.
Dude, there are lots of dog breeds used to hunt large predators like lions tigers and bears. Rhodesian ridgebacks were used to hunt lions. Pit bulls weigh less than 100 lbs and used to fight bulls that can weigh a standard ton. Blue heelers are less than 50lbs and intimidate cattle 20 times their size.
Plus If you have speed and pack hunting, you can practically kill anything
I find that Knowing better's video's are often looking for a reason to be butthurt. Most of the stuff actually makes sense. Check out Biographics channel..it seems much more authentic
Yeah that sounded weird. Dogs are important in hunting big game, even small dogs.
Search “lions vs Maasai dog”.
@@qwertyuiop9060 Ah yes Biographics. Because nothing says ‘content’ like a generic white English man reading off a Wikipedia page for 20 minutes
Nice try but we know you are just keeping all the gold for yourself.
I use to conqueror the world like you, but then I took a arrow to the knee. -Genghis Khan
*Laughs in Tamerlame*
Lol, I was thinking the same thing
I used to think his name was mark o'polo and he was irish
Lmaooo 😂😂 this is a good one
Europe: Alright Marco we got some maps made on your very accurate book, so mind helping us find that gold?
Marco Polo: About that...
I am from Dominican Republic and the north part of the island is call Cibao. the are some theories about the name Cibao comes from the word Cipangu. Do that in the beginner colon thought that he was in cipangu.
Very interesting, Juan Carlos. It's entirely possible. Saludos amigo.
Having been to Yangzhou many times for business, the locals told me that Marco Polo was the salt commissioner not the governor/mayor of Yangzhou. However, I don't know where they got their information from and if credible sources or that it is just a local legend.
Wait... this actually makes a lot of sense as to why everyone thought there was gold in the Americas and why all the maps were so wack. Great video KB!
There were giant birds in madagascar. They were not eagles but it is undestandable how tales of a giant bird would get distorted through verbal accounts and translations into a giant eagle. These giant flightless birds went extinct between 1000-1200 CE so it makes sense their, existance although distorted, was still present in culture in a way that might have seemed plausible during Maro Polo's time since he was born in 1254 CE.
The roc (rukh) is known from Sindbad the Sailor's encounter with one in One Thousand and One Nights. Some scholars think the roc is a distorted account of Aepyornis. Historical evidence for this can be found in Megiser (1623).
You forgot to mention that those giant flightless birds in Madagascar are known today as Elephant Birds. Not sure when they got the name but Elephant Bird could easily be garbled into a bird big enough to devour an elephant.
There was also the giant Haast's Eagle in New Zealand that preyed upon the Moa and went extinct around 1400. Moas were related to Elephant Birds so it's actually kind of true (if you squint) that there were giant eagles capable of taking an elephant (bird) at the time of Polo's travels.
I don't now the context of Polo's report but it wouldn't be too difficult for traders in Asia to garble similar accounts of animals on different far away islands into a single story. The Maori began to colonise New Zealand only about 60 years after Polo returned home, so it isn't beyond the realm of possibility for Polynesian reports of new islands to get passed along the trade networks back to Indonesia, then on into China.
Yellow is symbol of the emperor of China so the roofs of Chinese imperial buildings were painted yellow which could have been mistaken for gold
Great video about one of my fave themes, ancient and medieval geography. But there's a few things I have to nitpick:
1) Camelopards/Unicorns: Both were pretty common Latin names for these animals at the time.
2) The journey of 15 days: In travel books of that it was common to not mention which mode of transport you'd need for a journey.
3) Qin is still a pretty common spelling of ancient China (e.g. qin dynasty) Although he might have been the origin of the spelling.
I still highly doubt that he went to China but these points are not what make his accounts ridiculous.
I mean, he probably went to China, he just exaggerated his journey. He accurately describes cities that only someone who'd been there would know.
10:23 Just FYI, 'Qin' is actually indeed the correct spelling of that word. Qs have a 'ch' sound in Chinese. That's why 'China' is named after Emperor 'Qin'.
I started watching you 2 years ago and now i am 13 and you were one of my biggest inspirations for things i like
Cipangu's golden city reminds me of something:
Only a few years ago, the Swedish tourist board was bombarded by calls from Chinese men who sought information about 'Chako Paul City' - a supposed grand walled metropolis made up entirely of lesbians.
FYI, giraffes ARE camelopards. That’s where their species name comes from - Giraffa camelopardalis. Yes, a lot of it cannot be substantiated as of HIS journeys. But, not everything is outside of possibility. Hawks that can carry elephants? No. Siberia being the “land of darkness” - it can very well be (if that’s how you see a barren expanse of cold)
During polar night the name would be suitable ;)
Hol up
I clicked on the video AS SOON as I got the notification but these comments are three days old
Available to patrons first as an unlisted video? Idk
You get the notification when he makes it public. He uploaded it early, either unlisted or privately so that his friends can look for mistake.
@@kveeder3224 no patreons get it early
i want to like but i am not allowed to
......... Well if Patrons spot a glaring error he can edit before publishing it openly! A bit like proof readers but they pay for it!
_oops looks like I just inspired colonialism_
Nothing wrong with it
@Zimmit's FunHouse Adventure lol non euros today live a better life compared to their ancestors 500 years ago thanks to colonialism
O. M. The Irish were colonized
@Zimmit's FunHouse Adventure Oh yes. Having technology, law, and civilization available to you is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO opressive!!!!!!!!!!!!
@Zimmit's FunHouse Adventure
You mean there was Science, Trains, Chemic-based Medicine, Positive Law, and european Engineering well before european colonialism????????? WOW! Please, I'd be happy to read about it :)
But I agree, Colonialism has existed in one form or another in every organized society, on every land mass, in groups made up of ALL COLORS since the dawn of time.
Take your leftist rethorics somewhere else bud.
Qin (pronounced Chin) is how it would be spelled in modern times too. Makes me wonder if they had an Arabicized Chinese that Polo pulled from when transliterating words.
The thing is, Qin is actually not pronounced the same way as "Chin". Those are two completely different sounds in Chinese (for the Ch-sound you have your tongue curled back in the mouth similarly to the English R, while the tip is on your lower teeth for Q). It's COMPLETELY different, no confusion has ever come out of that. No, but seriously there is a difference.
@@3st3st77 ENGLISH Chin
Marco? Accidentally inspiring masses of people to explore the unknown? Polo?
Marco Polo: Ah yes, Madagascar has plenty of unicorns and long necked camelopes and elephant snatching hawks, and the Himalayas have very naughty, epic women and weird mountain monks that can do dope stunts jumping off the mountains...
Also, Cipangu is a very rich island with tons and tons of gold, so much that their houses are literally gold, go west Colombus
This makes me think that Gulliver's Travels was at least partially inspired by Marco Polo, and is MUCH more satirical than fantastical than we usually think these days.
@@LarsBlitzer Yes
@@LarsBlitzer Nope. Jonathan Swift, who's known in the British Isles as _Ascendancy Irish_ , wrote it as an allegory criticising the participants of three election cycles in the then (and later) semi-autonomous Irish Parliament.
1) It's not clear if Marco said to have been the governor of Yangzou, since this particular is absent in some of the older known copies of his book.
2) It's not like we have anything resembling a complete, or even a fragmentary list of the governors of Yangzou, or of Kublai's reign's VIPs. Chinese records are far from complete, and, in particular for the early Yuan dinasty, THEY ARE VERY SCARCE. Much of the Chinese texts on Kublay's reign with wich we compare Marco Polo's account to decide if he was right or not HAD BEEN WRITTEN WELL AFTER "THE TRAVELS OF MARCO POLO", SOMETIMES MORE THAN A CENTURY LATER".
3) Actually, for incredible it might seem, if you put men, women, horses and camels in a convoy, they travel at the same pace.
4) Marco Polo's account on China is not the only one written until 1492. MANY other travelers had been there at that point. Several had been within few years from the return of Marco, and many wrote their own accounts. It only happens that Marco's one is the most complete.
5) Try to write something better.
Shoot, found this video a few minutes after it was posted and now I have to come up with something clever to say
Make a video instead
@@rabbiteighteen4012 Roasted
Love your content Jack
I love the smell of colonialism in the morning.
*God save the Queen plays*
Smells like... profit.
Marco Polo literally described colonialism in his book. Turkomania: TUrkic colonialist states in native Caucasus and Anatolian lands.
"Hey guys look at all this cool stuff I saw in the far east!"
"Hmm that's cool let's take it over."
"Shit no wait-"
Well, those Easterns already took over parts of the WEst, so fair play.
Bold of you to assume that Arthurian writers let characters drive the plot
I was in cipangu! I saw a temple of gold!! (It’s called Kinkakuji and it’s in Kyoto).
I get how idolatry sounds to modern ears, but did marco have access to the word pantheism? I don't think it's meant to be insulting, but descriptive. They do not worship one god, they have a lot of figurines that they seem to worship. What other word would he use?
It's also a 100% accurate description. If you are worshiping anything (including money) other than the God of the Bible, that would be idolatry. It doesn't just have to be statues.
In my Russian-school the mongols were called “Mongol-tartars”
Trouble Maker well I believe china called mongal tribes tar tars
English-born author Edward Rutherfurd in his novel "RUSSKA" credits the popularity of the word Tartar (or _Tatar_ ) to the Russians of the era of the White Horde, and says the word was confusedly applied to anyone who worked for the Khan before the invasion of Russia.
Well "unicorn" means "one horned", and the Indian rhinoceros he would have seen in Asia have only one horn so he's technically not wrong on that
"Children have been doing it in swimming pools for decades."
Uh phrasing.
It's a reference to the game called Marco Polo.
I knew that was Blue from OSP as soon as he started talking. It's always great to see quality creators working together.
9:50: If you ever want to catch White Falcons, go to Greenland apparently
AlternateHistoryHub hi
My country - Estonia, only ~45'000 square kilometers and 1.3 million people - has 2222 islands, among which 318 have area larger than 1 hectare... So... yes, depends on your definition, but - there are certainly millions of islands across the world...
I always enjoy your videos. The legend of El Dorado isn't drawn from Marco Polo. It is drawn from tales of an Andean tribe that covered new leaders in gold dust as part of a sort of coronation and that threw treasure into a lake to appease a god during the ceremony. The Spaniards heard these legends from coastal tribes in South America. Tales of fabled cities of wealth are present in many cultures. The death of vast numbers of people in the Americas from mere contact with Europeans, let alone their actions, is truly a great tragedy, but improving naval technology and the danger involved in rounding the Cape of Good Hope, even in a stout ship, would have sent Europeans (especially non-Portuguese) looking for a route across the Atlantic to Asia within 20 or 30 years anyway, and they would have brought with them all Eurasia's plagues. Different vector, same result, Marco Polo not required (I think you made this point in your Columbus video). You also make it sound like Marco Polo's Travels was somehow uniquely inaccurate. That may have been unintentional on your part. No matter where you go in the world if a local is describing someplace far away pre-Industrial Age, even if the local has supposedly been there, the greater the distance, the more elements of fantasy/distortion creep in. Just look at Chinese accounts of the Roman Empire (Da Qin).
I appreciate hilarious ad transitions. Imagine, Marco Polo pulling up the Internet and signing up for Skillshare....
I disagree because you have the benefit of Modern globalize world where you can go to Mongolia or China in a matter of hours, or at least watch dozens of documentaries
you can if you live in a modest size city try chinese food.
You also are used to living in a world where hinduism or buddhism or animism are known concepts. because he was only familar with Christianity Islam and Judaism.
Also not knowing America existed and having the great Khan describe Japan as a large or several large islands is fair because they couldn't take over Japan.
I'm usally a huge fan of your work sir but I think we take advantage of the fact that we already know this and are taught this in elementary school
The nerflix show is actually really underrated
Yeah. It got cancelled sadly
@Mc Water Too much inaccuracies as well
Marco Polo was one of Netflix's best shows.
Is the fact you make references to King Arthur in this video multiple times, in context of your recent works being reviews of "historical fanfiction" a hint, or just you being weird?
Megawatt a little of column A, a little of column B?
Marco Polo would be a great Buzz Feed Author.
The fact that your ringtone was the Power Rangers beep filled me with joy.
Hey, Prester John did exist.
He even sent a delegation to the Vatican, who were apparently totally cool with the whole race thing, but they did insist on calling their king Prester John despite them insisting he had a native Ethiopian name that would be much more appropriate.
10:33 Just so you know these islands could refer to the Philippines (7,000+ islands), Indonesia (17,000+ islands) and Malaysia (~880 islands). Plus add in the islands of Vietnam, Thailand, etc. These would be in the right place...ish.
Some rhinos ARE unicorns though... the only have the one horn.
- "kids do it in the pool all the time"
my brain: poop
Ah man, you're so screwed now. I'm calling you Serge.
Hey, KB! Just wanted to thank you for doing some videos on me a while back! Keep up the good work!
4:19 people back in the day were easier to impress
4:58 due to him telling this decades after the actual travel and the writer not being a traveler himself. Considering also they had to communicate in "French" which wasn't their mother tongue, it is highly probable that Marco Polo meant another region of China.
5:30 even considering how easy people could have been impressed, he could have not being impressed by a wall made of dirt and mud and probably it was impossible to him to realize how big it was. Also, the Polo family was formed of merchant.
7:00 remember that Rustichello was a writer and probably he could have modified the story making it more heroic and adventurous
7:36 probably he was referring to the tibetan mastiff.
7:48 he might have mistaken Sri Lanka fot Madagascar
8:17 again Rustichello. Marco Polo has never traveled to Japan and considering how weak was the Mongol navy, he might have been told so by a Chinese or a Mongol.
In conclusion, Marco Polo did travel to China, however I think the book was too much over the edge between reality and fiction, due to Marco Polo being a merchant unable to speak Mongol and Chinese with a little understanding of the situation and Rustichello being a writer.
My wife and I walk at vastly different speeds as well, she also walks at the Formula 1 level and gets quite angry that I... don't.
I really like your Chanel and most of your videos but this one is so full of inaccuracies and a failure to understand medieval POV, that it might be even more inaccurate than Marco Polo's book.
1st. In the 13th century the Great Wall was much smaller than today, and broken up in many segments, miles apart. Also, it's only a "great wall" to us because we can see it from the air, but from the ground there's nothing particularly impressive about it. Nor would have the locals known how much of it exists beyond their village. European city walls back then were generally taller, so there is no reason why Marco Polo would have noticed it for having some significance.
2nd Merchants travel guide??? What's wrong with that? He was a merchant promoting his trade.
3rd Major failure on POV. In the13th century people had no concept of religion like we do today. People were raised with ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY that god was real. There was NO religion, just the local cultural link to God. There was only ONE god, and different "civilized" cultures each had a different "link" to God, Christianity in Europe, Jews and Muslims in the near east. Everyone else was "ignorant" of God(aka the truth). They were deprived of that knowledge thus, animalistic, not quite human yet. Sure, that sounds terrible from our POV, but we've had the benefit of some very impressive philosophers and scientists over the last 800 years to improve our understanding. How can you expect and fault a medieval man for not thinking like us?????
4th Siberia "region of darkens" Well the sun doesn't get very high in the sky, and in the winter hardly at all, and it's rarely ever sunny even in summer, so yes it is generally dark. I'm pretty sure he was being literal, which proves that he was there, or at least spoke to someone who was.
5th All human societies use dogs for hunting, even against large predators, lions, tigers, bears, etc.
6th Check out the Elephant Bird of Madagascar. Giant birds existed there until about a thousand years ago. Maybe he never saw them himself, and exaggerated their description, but giant 10foot plus birds did exist in Madagascar very close to his time period.
7th Why are you judging medieval people who had not yet developed the concept of "accuracy"? This is a modern scientific idea, precision, accuracy, that evolved out of the scientific method.
8th Again, why are you criticizing a man who rode on the back of donkey on his lack of clear geographical knowledge. How could he know? It took hundreds of years and the invention of actuate measuring devices in the 17th and 18th centuries to finally give people the tools for accurately measuring coastlines. You might as well "accuse" MP for being silly wasting 20 years on a donkey when he could have driven a car to China. and gotten there much faster. Come on now.
9th Isn't that how kowlege works? The words of one inspire another. We credit the Greeks for inspiring modern science, but if you look at actual Greek science, in it's time, it was a mess. Totally inaccurate about everything, but the method is what mattered. They were logical, not mystical, but still inaccurate. And after more than 2000 years, by improving the method, it's how we got modern science.
10th Isn't history full of war and conquest. How many did the Mongols kill? And why did they do it? What difference does it make where a conquest is sourced from? The deeds of Cortez have no more to do with Marco Polo than the deeds of Hitler. Both of these evil men could have chosen to achieve their goals without the mass killings.
This video is a perfect example of everything wrong with the modern ethnocentric-western-POV., and the projection of these "localized cultural biases" on other cultures. Today, as in 2019, this SJW/PC western culture... is just that, the very current local philosophical culture of the West. And it is in transition, as all things are. Current philosophies on "social justice" will die with the millennials who practice it and will be looked upon no different than we look upon 60's hippies, thus projecting it into history makes this video just as inaccurate, and limited in facts, as Marco Polo's book. And that's sad, because YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER.
Thank you
very intelligent rebuttal. +1 and i have to disagree with the 10th point. Mongol brutality was according to many contemporary sources, exceptionally brutal. For instance Persian never had that kind of atrocities commited before (Arab conquest was very mild compared to Mongols, and Roman and Greek conquests were also mild). Mongols depopulated North Persia (Khorasan) to 1/1000 of previous population. That's why the "stan" states in Central Asia are mostly Mongoloid in appearenace (Turkic/Mongolic descents, original Indo-Europeans massacred and displaced). Cortez brought civlization to Mesoamerica, without him, the Aztecs would just keep sacrificing hundreds of thousands of people. Cortez brought an end to it but apparetnly not enough, as Mexico is still brutal even today.
10:35 "I doubt there are that many islands in the world."
Depending on the source, the Philippines has approximately 7,107 to 7,108 islands.
👋
Annnnnddd, immediately afterwards in the video
it is mentioned that that is hyperbole
I love when you crossover into literature/ historiography. Please give more.
Yuan Dynasty was very interesting and diverse empire. It affected entire Asia one way or another and It still does to this day. I am loving you are doing more Asian Videos! Keep on the good work Mr. Knowing Better. Love from South Korea.
The Yuan Dynasty, especially under Kublai, was the first instance of widespread religious freedom and people tend to sadly ignore how actually remarkably ably well that went a lot
@@Timon-IrishFolk that was already happening under his predecessors, the empire of Genghis Khan. Genghis Khan believes in freedom of religion and only punishes those who rebelled against him.
@@alexanderchristopher6237 But Ghenghis in general was a rebel against the old guard, he often times promoted based on merit not on rank. Kublai however inherited that massive Empire with lots of rebellions and the Mongols being the minority and such but just kept it tolerant. Ghenghis was in a way "meant" to be tolerant but Kublai made it real, actual policy in an Empire
@@Timon-IrishFolk the yuan dynasty is regarded as one of the worst dynasties of China
They used a cast system dependent on race
I usually find your videos you be fine, but this one was.... not so.
Are you really criticizing a 13th century Venetian for not spelling something correctly in modern day English?
I'm not very knowledgeable at all about Chinese history but even I know that the "Qin" dynasty is the first Chinese dynasty, possibly where the name comes from.
Also, the whole "contemporary cartographers should have known better then to use Marco Polo's book to draw maps" as acting as if they had access to GPS satellite imagery and went "nah we'll use this book instead". What source would you wanted them to have used?
I first thought you were being sarcastic, but watching the full video it doesn't seem to be the case. I'm kinda shocked at the lack quality of this video honestly.
When Marco Polo was in China, Kublai Kahn was preparing the second invasion of Japan. The first invasion was wiped out by a typhoon just before landing in Japan, and Kublai Kahn was hyping up the target for his new fleet, so that's where the golden cities stories probably came from. By the way, the second invasion was just barely able to establish a beachhead when a category 3 typhoon struck the invasion force, destroying it. The Japanese thought the fact two different typhoons destroyed invasion forces was more than a coincidence, so they called it the "divine wind" or 神風 (kamikaze).
10:45
Coincidentally I can see a bunch of different islands just from my office window here in Sweden
I showed your channel to my dad who is a history professor in NYU and he suggests multiple of your videos on his google classroom.
"Three other books can say that"
Uhhhhm. What are The Bible, The Q'uran, and Mein Kampf, Alex?
And Mao's little red book
_De Temperamentis_ from Galen(us) should be added too. Many Europeans died from his flawed body fluids theory.
@Dewaldt How's that?
I can see what he was getting at with Turkey 🤣🤣🤣
This really breaks the plot of national treasure 2.
So glad to see the subscriber count wayyy up. I have been watching your videos for a about a year now . I truly enjoy the content and your presentation of facts over opinion. Another thing that is refreshing on UA-cam is the vulnerability you wear on your sleeve. I'm sure you don't need to hear it from me but keep it up.
Erd-Ap-Fel not Erda-pfel, just some German nitpicking.
He is absolutely correct to call Rhinos "unicorns". Look it up.
When I learned German, my pseudonym was Kai.
A day's journey, or just, a journey (from the French "jour", meaning "day", was something of a unit of distance; it was the distance one could walk comfortably in a day, do business, and then come home, so something like 10 miles; it's one of the reasons most settlements throughout history were around 10-15 miles apart.
PS: I need that ringtone
Wait what's wrong with putting soda can in the freezer? You can leave it there for like a couple minutes to cool the beverage
Just don't wait too long
One possible defense for the spelling of Qin. Chinese has the "ch" sound (like in the Chinese word 床 [chuáng], meaning "bed") but also a more mild variant that is typically spelled "qi" (like in the word 起床 [qǐchuáng] meaning "get up/wake up/get out of bed"). They are two different sounds but speakers of Romance languages generally cannot distinguish them.
Marco Polo: ahhh yes Beijing, remember seeing green aliens there and gold flying around everywhere
is that Mr.Bean face I see in your pfp
I feel like George R R Martin was inspired by Marco Polo in how the world in his book is described
Apparently, Westeros was based on his childhood fantasies of the more rural parts of New York City
I almost always enjoy the videos on this channel. Not so much this one. Contrary to this Channel’s usual flair, it was trite, needlessly judgmental, and absent context.
The criticisms of the text ascribed to Marco Polo are minimally fair, to the extent that yes, there are many literal factual errors and flights of fancy. But, this video almost completely ignores the astounding context in which this work is better understood and appreciated. Some 750 years ago, when Notre Dame de Paris was still a building site and the Black Death had yet to occur, merchants from the edges of Eurasia were traveling East and bringing back riches not only in trade good and spices, but also cultural and narrative. In that sense, Marco Polo’s story marks a critical period in the growth of understanding of the world and fascination with it, and an appreciation of what it means to be human in a far larger context.
It’s by no means a perfect text. It harbors prejudices and misunderstandings. There are fantastic beasts and wild fancies. But when is a first run at anything the “best of.” Still, the first flourishing of understanding is always praiseworthy and beautiful. And the text itself gives a rare and vivid insight into the world of the High Middle Ages. (I often wonder how our ancestors, deprived of our modern technology, were able to know as much as they did about the world in which they lived. So little of it is in any sense obvious or readily perceptible.)
As for the uses to which Marco Polo’s story may have been put some 200 plus years after his death can hardly be attributed in any fair sense to him. Indeed, as this Channel’s own analysis of Christopher Columbus established, it could hardly have been appreciated by Columbus himself while it was happening.
Had Marco Polo’s adventures gone unrecorded, how much poorer and smaller our world would have been. Human interaction and development isn’t a seamless arc inscribing a journey to just perfection. The journey is meandering, at points elating and at others harrowing.
All I can say is that I hope that future generations are kinder to us that this video was to those who preceded us.
Laughed out loud at "very rude and of dull intellect". That about sums up my experiences and perception 😂
You made my day ten times better. I also got to know better hell yeah!
"spelled Qin because why not ?" Because that's the origin of the word "China" (from french : Chine, from chinese Qin, refering to the Qin dynasty, first dynasty of China)
I'd like to point out that the legend of "Prester John" had existed long before Marco Polo. Europeans thought his kingdom was in India or Persia at first, and anytime they heard of a non-muslim (such as the Mongols) defeating muslims in the east they theorized that it was him. The even theorized Timur (who was very much Muslim) may have been Prester John when he defeated the Ottomans. Eventually the Portuguese became convinced his realm was actually in Africa, helping to inspire journeys like Vasco da Gama's. Despite the fact that Ethiopia had already been known to Medieval Europeans (though contact was sparse and limited) and travelers such as Marco Polo describe Ethiopia as a separate christian kingdom from Prester John's, the Portuguese, and eventually Europeans in general, settled on Ethiopia as the location of the legendary realm (despite protests from the Ethiopian royal court insisting that "Prester John" was not one of the Emperor's titles).
The thing about the giant eagles in Madagascar probably goes back to legends based on found eggshells of the extinct elephant bird.
"OK there are like 3 other books that can say that"
My mind immediately went to the Bible and the communist manifesto but idk what the third would be
@Let's Travel yeah there’s a few big ones, prob more than 3...
Bible, Quran, Torah
Communist Manifesto, Mein Kampf
Yay ! I get to see a video as it’s posted !!! This is exciting
Wait, there are comments from a day ago, I feel like I’ve done this before when getting a notification for a video
WAS THIS VIDEO UNLISTED UNTIL NOW ?
If I saw a reno for the first time, I would call it an unicorn too. LOL
Drew Girard lol ok. Thanks for the correction.
I just found your channel. I'm a pattreon for Beau of the Fifth Column. In his discord, someone mentioned your channel, and said you did a history channel. I'm a huge history and government buff, so I thought I'd check you out. Love the content, you got a new subscriber.
Honestly I’m impressed with this channel I learn something new every time I click on a video
Good Ol' KB!
Keep posting history related videos like this one.
Very informative, as always.
"Kids have been doing this in pools for decades."
...peeing?
"Which he calls 'unicorns'" -- lol. Amazing. A man ahead of his time.