Travel Knowledge: European “Discoveries” in the Early Modern Period

Product Description 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. Review With its marvelous, inventive format 1; the pairing together of well-selected primary materials and impressive interpretive essays 1; "Travel Knowledge" makes a crucial contribution to our understanding of cross-cultural encounters in the Early Modern period. Europeans left a huge, fascinating archive of eyewitness records of these encounters, an archive that has a significant bearing on our contemporary situation. But we scarcely know where to dig in or what questions to ask. The selections in "Travel Knowledge" are a perfect place to begin, and the contributors are exceptionally valuable guides. "Stephen Greenblatt, Cogan University Professor, Harvard University" ...rigorously informed by the most recent and sophisticated scholarship on travel writing...yet are still highly original... "-International Journal of African Historical Studies" With its marvelous, inventive format – the pairing together of well-selected primary materials and impressive interpretive essays – "Travel Knowledge" makes a crucial contribution to our understanding of cross-cultural encounters in the Early Modern period. Europeans left a huge, fascinating archive of eyewitness records of these encounters, an archive that has a significant bearing on our contemporary situation. But we scarcely know where to dig in or what questions to ask. The selections in "Travel Knowledge" are a perfect place to begin, and the contributors are exceptionally valuable guides. "Stephen Greenblatt, Cogan University Professor, Harvard University" ...rigorously informed by the most recent and sophisticated scholarship on travel writing...yet are still highly original... "-International Journal of African Historical Studies" With its marvelous, inventive format - the pairing together of well-selected primary materials and impressive interpretive essays - "Travel Knowledge" makes a crucial contribution to our understanding of cross-cultural encounters in the Early Modern period. Europeans left a huge, fascinating archive of eyewitness records of these encounters, an archive that has a significant bearing on our contemporary situation. But we scarcely know where to dig in or what questions to ask. The selections in "Travel Knowledge" are a perfect place to begin, and the contributors are exceptionally valuable guides. "Stephen Greenblatt, Cogan University Professor, Harvard University" ...rigorously informed by the most recent and sophisticated scholarship on travel writing...yet are still highly original... "-International Journal of African Historical Studies" About the Author Ivo Kamps is Associate Professor of English at the University of Mississippi. Jyotsna Singh is Associate Professor of English at Michigan State University.