Mao Zedong

by Jonathan Clements

Published 31 March 2006
Mao Zedong went from being a poor farmer's son to a revolutionary leader, a general in World War II and the ruler of the world's most populous nation. Alternately glorified and demonized, not only in the Western world, but also in the China that he once ruled, his influence...Read more

Marco Polo

by Jonathan Clements

Published 6 August 2007
The records of the Chinese Yuan dynasty do not mention a Marco Polo at all (and they should), and there are some suspicious omissions from Polo's text - no tea, no foot-binding, no mention of Chinese printing, or even of the Great Wall. Did Polo even go to China?