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 | | | | | After you, Marco Polo |  | Author: Jean Bowie Shor
Publisher: McGraw-Hill
Category: Book
Buy New: $5.00
Buy Used from $5.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  (5 reviews)
Sales Rank: 1080793
Languages: English (Published), English (Unknown)
Media: Unknown Binding
Pages: 294
ASIN: B0007DKBEU
Publication Date: 1955
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
After you Jean Shor April 21, 2008
A newly married couple set off to follow the trail of Marco Polo. Along the way they visit places described by Marco Polo, as well as places Marco Polo never got to, such as the Hunza Valley.
In lands of foreign languages, the Shors encounter a variety of people from kings, queens and Shahs, to
villagers, guides and yak pullers.
After meeting in China where they both worked and lived, Jean Bowie and Franc Shor were married, although Jean wouldn't have know otherwise as the service was in Chinese. The Shors, both seasoned travelers, soon are honeymooning across parts of China. While on their honeymoon Jean, an ardent follower of Marco Polo, is reminded of his explorations.
After Franc is willing to make the trek, the couple start leaping the hurdles. They overcome numerous obstacles, impossible with todays traveling systems and security. While preparing to leave and traveling through Europe, Franc adopted a necessary maxim, " After we leave here we won't get anything good to eat." This he would recite anytime they both dined at a restaurant with appealing delicacies. " He says it in New York before we leave for Paris, and in Paris before Rome, and in Rome before Cairo." Mrs. Shor says, " The grass is always dead on the other side of the street."
After all preparations are finished, so they think, the Shors set off on an eight month exploration through the Middle East, following Marco Polo's footsteps and just like him, trying to make it to China.
Enchanting journey to Shangrila October 2, 2007
I'd recommend this book for children or at least middle school. Written about tracing the steps of Marco Polo, the best part was the end where they slide with their yaks into the valley of the Hunzas in Northern Pakistan. The Hunzas are people who love in a mountain suntrap, with no written language, lots of apricot oil and no cancer. Fascinating. I'm sorry the authoress didn't write more books.
 Lifetime Memories of More Peaceful Times in High Asia November 19, 2005
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Just after WW II when the world's inhabitants were still resting from their efforts and the Chinese Civil War was in a lull and westerners, especially Americans were welcome almost anywhere, a couple set out to see the remote areas of High Asia where few westerners had ever gone. They managed to travel in a time of relative safety compared with now.
I remember the days of hippies in the sixties riding local buses across Turkey, Iran snd Afghanistan on their way from Europe to Nepal. And the rivalry between the US and USSR for influence with the Afghan government and people. We and the USSR were competing with aid projects including modern mapping, road building, dams and other infrstrucure projects. There were even guidebooks detailing routes to and ancient monuments at Herat, Balkh, Kandahar, and elsewhere.
Whst makes these remarka relevent today was the relative safety of travel on the besten paths in the fifties and sixties.Then the world's interest in the "Roof of Asia" was inspired by the msny articles in the National Geographic in the forties and fifties. I followed the adventures of Franc and Jean and was saddened by their subsequent splittng up. I had even hoped to go there some day, especially to Tibet, but by the time I graduated from university, the Chinese Reds had long since closed the area east of the Wakhan to westerners. I had eagerly read Lowell Thomas's Tibet articles in the SEP as well.
I first read those articles in "real time" as a young lad in the forties and have retained an interest in the area ever since. I was never fortunate enough to travel to high Asia on mapping expeditions when the Army Map Service was working in Iran. I came to work at AMS too late to go to the field. In a few years oue field men had either been expelled or finished the work in most of the countries involved.
This book is not a scientific study but an impressionistic account of one couple's journey during a window of opportunity which will never come again, at least in the relative safety of the late forties.
The book is based on the articles that originally appeared in the Geographic magazine.
Afghanistan as few westerners have ever seen May 25, 2003
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Wonderful travel book about a very volatile part of the world. Franc and Jean Schor travel through China after WWII on their honeymoon when Jean gets the idea to follow the route of Marco Polo after reading his account. After much planning with the National Geographic and cajoling of governments to issue the necessary visas they embark on an adventurous trip through much of South West Asia.The more interesting accounts are of their meeting and befriending the Shah of Iran. They come to spend quite some time with him and his family. He even flies them himself in his converted B-17 over the "hot Desert" of Iran. They come away seeing the Shah as an enlightened leader who will modernize the country. Just to show you what a small world it is they meet Chief Justice William O'Douglas, at a dinner party in Iran. He seems to have spent allot of his spare time exploring in that part of the world as a hobby. At the dinner party he says, "I would much rather set precedent than follow precedent." In Afghanistan they get to meet King Mohammed Zahir, (who is 93 and presently in exile in Italy), by using a letter of introduction given them from the Shah of Iran. King Zahir grants them permission to travel through the Wakhan corridor, a very dangerous desolate area bordering China. They are the first "westerners" to travel this part of Afghanistan and write about it since the 19th century. The descriptions of abject poverty and their dealings with "duplicitous" Afghans still rings true today by all accounts we see in the news. This is an enjoyable book describing the people and treacherous terrain of South West Asia. Franc and Jean Schor become intrepid world travelers who did many stories for National Geographic. As a retired Army officer and student of political philosophy I reccomend the book highly.
A forgotten Classic October 10, 2002
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Written by a woman who was not a professional explorer, but rather an individual with a keen sense of adventure, and history. A modest and beautifully written work that flows so easily that it can be enjoyed in just a few sittings. It takes place in the period just after WWII before the world was over-run with cell phones, satellite photos and email. A true aventure from a simpler time...
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