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1484 berkshire encyclopedia of world history
of Chinese gentry women in his tale. Perhaps these omis-
sions, as well as the more fanciful elements in the Trav- Population
els involving cannibalism and bizarre sexual behavior,
can be blamed not on Marco Polo, but on the chronicler opulation growth and decline affect human history
of his adventures, Rusticello. In the end, whether or not Peverywhere and always, sometimes making life bet-
Marco Polo ever did make it to the Khan’s capital or ter, sometimes making it worse. Basic instincts and
serve as a Mongol official, is not as important as the fact human wishes promote births, and people almost always
that his Travels inspired generations of Europeans to try to escape death. But individual choices are only part
look beyond their borders and to eventually search for of what balances births with deaths and determines the
routes to the riches he described. actual sizes of human populations. Availability of food
and exposures to lethal disease are other obvious factors;
Robert John Perrins
so is the frequency of death from predatory animals or
See also China human violence. Moral rules, marriage customs, and the
costs and gains of child raising also affect family size. In
addition, migration from one community to another
Further Reading reasserts human populations continually, enlarging some
Gernet, J. (1962). Daily life in China on the eve of the Mongol invasion, and diminishing other groups. Finally, new healing skills
1250–1276. (H. M.Wright,Trans.). Stanford, CA: Stanford Univer-
sity Press. can sometimes prolong life, as happened worldwide after
Hart, H. H. (1967). Marco Polo:Venetian adventurer. Norman, OK: Uni- 1950; and birth control pills lowered birth rates even
versity of Oklahoma Press.
Humble, R. (1975). Marco Polo. London: George Weidenfeld and more recently.The interplay of these and still other factors
Nicolson. remains far too complex for anyone to decipher fully.
Marsden, W. (Trans.).(1997). Marco Polo: The travels. Ware, Hertsford- Increase and decrease in membership of small local
shire: Wordsworth Editions. (Original work published 1818)
Moule, A. C., & Pelliot, P. (1976). Marco Polo: The description of the communities is what people actually notice, and when
world (Vols. 1–2). New York: AMS Press. changes are swift and obvious, as is true in most rural
Olschki, L. (1960). Marco Polo’s Asia: An introduction to his description
of the world called ‘Il Milione’. (John A. Scott,Trans.). Berkeley: Uni- communities today, radical disruptions of old ways of life
versity of California Press. ensue.Whole villages and small towns are disappearing;
Pelliot, P. (1959). Notes of Marco Polo (Vols. 1–2). Paris: Impression cities multiply and the texture of human daily life changes
Nationale.
Rossabi, M. (1988). Khubilai Khan: His life and times. Berkeley: Uni- in ways that may turn out to be unsustainable.
versity of California Press. Throughout most of the past people took the circum-
Wood, F. (1996). Did Marco Polo go to China? Boulder, CO: Westview
Press. stances into which they were born more or less for grant-
Yule, H. (Trans. & Ed.). (1921). The book of Ser Marco Polo the Venetian ed and had no notion of how growth or decrease in their
concerning the kingdoms and marvels of the East (Vols. 1–2). London: local community was immersed in larger patterns of popu-
John Murray.
lation changes.To be sure, governments sometimes made
efforts to list taxpayers, and historians have used surviving
fragments of tax lists to estimate the total populations of
the Roman and Chinese empires around the beginning of
Popular Culture the common era at about 60 millions each. But such evi-
dence is fragmentary, and modern estimates of world
See Alcohol; Art—Overview; Consumerism; Dance and population rest on guesswork about average density of for-
Drill; Dress; Drugs; Festivals; Games; Globalization; Lei- agers and of farmers in different climates and landscapes
sure; Literature and Women; Mass Media; Modernity; around the earth. Anything like reliable census figures for
Music—Genres; Music and Political Protest; Postmod- whole countries start only about two hundred years ago
ernism; Sex and Sexuality; Sports and became (almost) worldwide only after 1950.