Historyspeaking topic
How did Marco Polo's journey to China change Europe's image of the East? How much of what he described was real, and how much was legend?
— Marco Polo and the journey to the East (13th century)
practice with this topic
Set the timer (5-30 min), take 20 seconds of prep if you like, start talking. Jot your thoughts onto the sticky-note board.
similar topics
- The Haitian Revolution (1791-1804): let's talk about how the French Revolution's idea of equality ignited the world's first successful slave revolt.
- For most of human history, people did not work long days; as hunter-gatherers they 'worked' perhaps twenty hours a week, and the intense daily grind arrived with farming and industry. When we say 'humans are hardworking by nature,' are we just mistaking the habit of the last few thousand years for a law of nature?
- The Renaissance rediscovery of ancient Greece and Rome (humanism): why did a 'rebirth' move forward by looking backward?
- Why was Copernicus's On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, which defended a sun-centered model of the universe, so earth-shattering?
- How did the Black Death change Europe? Let's discuss how a plague that wiped out a third of the population shook the feudal order and drove up workers' wages.