Description
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThe editors offer 33 carefully excerpted travel accounts that range chronologically from the 5th century CE . . . to the late 19th century . . . . The volume includes a literary foreword by Amitav Ghosh and a lucid and scholarly introduction by Khair. Each of these highly readable travel accounts is preceded by an informative editorial overview that looks at the traveler, the land through which the traveler journeys, and the purpose of travel (commerce, enlightenment, conversion, etc.). . . . Highly recommended.
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Table of ContentsGeneral Introduction by Tabish Khair
Note on the Process of Editing
1. The 5,000 year old Poetry of Travel: The Epic of Gilgamesh, Kalidasa's Meghadutam and Tang Poetry.
2. Three Chinese Scholars go 'West' to India (5th - 7th century)
3. The Travels of a Japanese Mond (c. 838)
4. A Merchant of Baghdad Reports on a Viking Funeral, A.D. 922
5. The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon (c. 990)
6. Alberuni's Defence of Hindu India (1030 AD)
7. The Horizons of al-Idrisi in the 11th Century
8. The Haj and Other Journeys of Ibn Jubayr (b. 1145)
9. Two Chinese Accounts of the Early Mongols (1221 and 1237)
10. The Pilgrimages of Lady Nijo (b. 1271)
11. The Memoirs of a Syrian Prince-Polymath (b. 1273)
12. Al-Abdari, the Disgruntled Traveller (c. 1290)
13. Zhou Daguan: Notes on Angkor Wat and Cambodia (1297)
14. Ibn Battutah, World Traveller (b. 1304)
15. Navigating with ibn Majid (floreat 1460)
16. A Korean Official's Account of China (1488)
17. The Travel Memoirs of Babur (b. 1482)
18. Piri Reis: The Voyages of a 'Corsair' (c. 1526)
19. The Ambivalences of Leo Africanus (1526)
20. The European Diaries of Uruch Beg (b. 1560)
21. The Travel Diaries of Xu Xiake (1623)
22. An Arab Cleric in South America (1668-83)
23. The Poetry of Basho's Road (1689)
24. Mirza I'tesamuddin's Wonders of Vilayet (1765)
25. Equiano's Voyage to Slavery and Freedom (1789)
26. Dean Mahomed Writes from the Centre (c. 1793)
27. African Muslim Slave Narratives of teh 19th Century
28. An Indian Aristocrat in Africa and Europe (1803)
29. The Diary of Queen Emma of Hawaii (b. 1836)
30. Al Amraoui: Moroccan Ambassador to Europe (1860)
31. Blyden: A Pan-Africanist's Voyage to Palestine (1873)
32. The Shah of Iran in European Corridors (1873)
33. An African-Arab Princess in Europe (1881)
34. Malabari: A Love-Hate Affair with the British (1890)
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