Description
Book SynopsisMost of us today know little about the conditions under which people travelled in early modern Europe. Travellers' accounts from the period generally omit detailed descriptions of the state of roads, the discomfort of a carriage or a coach, or the harshness of a landscape, even though these formed the everyday reality of travel for most people.
Trade Review'Rarely have I read a book as full of intriguing nuggets about the everyday life of the past and with as much potential to trigger engrossing flights of fancy as
Travel in Early Modern Europe.'
Literary Review 'His range shows through in the geographical reach of his text.' The Journal of Transport History
'A most welcome addition to the rapidly-growing English-language literature on the history of travel. It is not only scholarly and original, but readable and lively. It has itself the qualities of good travel books - apt quotations, picturesque detail, and a great deal of human interest.' Journal of Social History
'Maczak has marshalled the sources with magnificent erudition to provide a vivid and comprehensive account of the circumstances and attitudes that conditioned early modern travel ... Maczak makes fascinating use of multilingual phrasebooks for travellers ... a marvellous analysis of travellers and relics ... this is an important book of superb scholarship and sharp insight, which will be very welcome in English translation for early modern historians.' American Historical Review
Table of ContentsIntroduction to the English Edition.
1. Roads and Their Traffic.
2. Inns and Their Hospitality.
3. The Cost of Travelling.
4. Hygiene.
5. Frontiers.
6. The Travelling Community.
7. Instructions and Good Advice.
8. Dangers.
9. The Role of Books in Travellers' Daily Lives.
10. Scholars: Visiting and Visited.
11. Art and Artists.
12. Catholics, Protestants and Relics.
13. The Boundaries of the Permissible.
14. Tourists and Measurements.
15. Great Expectations and Everyday Impressions.
16. Conclusions Deduced From Travelling.
Bibliography.
Notes.
Index.
