Travel Knowledge examines European travel writing from 1500-1800, with
an emphasis on travel to the East Indies, Africa, and the Levant. The
importance of travel literature has grown in the humanities as scholars
plumb such texts for their insights on colonialism, the other, and the
nation, but this is one of the first volumes on European travel in the
early modern period. The essays further distinguish themselves by
focusing not on the European discovery of the Americas, but on voyages
to the east, and by allowing the voices of marginalized travelers to
speak through history. This collection includes both critical essays and
the primary texts to which they refer, a unique pairing. Travel
Knowledge is essential reading in history, literature, and ethnography.