Conversations with Marco Polo

About the Book

Conversations with Marco Polo is a biography of Eugene Haderlie, whose extraordinary life is deeply intertwined with the 20th century: a rough-and-tumble childhood in Wyoming during the Depression; an undergraduate expedition to Baja Mexico, where he crossed paths with John Steinbeck and had his inflamed appendix taken out by a veterinarian; two years as hard-hat diver in World War II, defusing mines in the English Channel and enduring the trauma of D-Day. The conversations recorded here are akin to reading about Marco Polo: tales of every-day life and adventure from a world we can never experience firsthand

About the Author

Mark Denny is the John and Jean DeNault Professor of Marine Sciences at Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station. A specialist in the application of physical principles to the study of biology, he bridges the interface between engineering and ecology. He and his family live in Pacific Grove. Joanna Nelson is a doctoral student in ecology at the University of California. She met Gene while working at Hopkins Marine Station and is honored to be part of this oral history and biography project with Mark. She and her husband Yair live in Santa Cruz