The essays in this collection -- a selection of papers presented at the University of Sydney Centre for Medieval Studies workshop, ‘Travel and Cartography from Bede to the Enlightenment’ (August 22-23, 2001) – track a variety of travel narratives from the eighth century to the eighteenth. Their voyages, which extend from from the literal to the spiritual, the political, and the artistic, show how the concept of narrative mapping has changed over time, and how it encompasses cosmogony, geography, chorography, topography, and inventory. Each essay is concerned in some way with the application of the medieval geographical imagination, or with the enduring influence of that imagination upon post-medieval travel and discovery writing. This book will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate university students and to a broad range of academics across the disciplines of literature and history. It will be of particular interest to medievalists and scholars of the early modern period and to readers of, the new (1997) scholarly journal, Studies in Travel Writing. The volume will also appeal to a more general, informed readership interested in the history of travel and the history of ideas, early contact with indigenous people, and encounters between East and West.

"Including William Dampier's unpublished journal".

The focus of this volume is the intersection and the cross-fertilization between the travel narrative, literary discourse, and the New Philosophy in the early modern to early eighteenth-century historical periods. Contributors examine how, in an historical era which realized an emphasis on nation and during a time when exploration was laying the foundation for empire, science and the literary discourse of the travel narrative become intrinsically linked. Together, the essays in this collection point out the way in which travel narratives reflect the anxiety from changes brought about through the discoveries of the 'new knowledge' and the way this knowledge in turn provided a new and more complex understanding of the expanding world in which the writers lived. The worlds in this text are many (for no 'world' is monomial), from the antipodes to the New World, from the heavens to the seas, and from fictional worlds to the world which contains and/or constructs one's nation and empire. All of these essays demonstrate the manner in which the New Philosophy dramatically changed literary discourse.

The issue of truth has been one of the most constant, complex, and contentious in the cultural history of travel writing. Whether the travel was undertaken in the name of exploration, pilgrimage, science, inspiration, self-discovery, or a combination of these elements, questions of veracity and authenticity inevitably arise. Women, Travel, and Truth is a collection of twelve essays that explore the manifold ways in which travel and truth interact in women's travel writing. Essays range in date from Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in the eighteenth century to Jamaica Kincaid in the twenty-first, across such regions as India, Italy, Norway, Siberia, Austria, the Orient, the Caribbean, China and Mexico. Topics explored include blurred distinctions of fiction and non-fiction; travel writing and politics; subjectivity; displacement, and exile. Students and academics with interests in literary studies, history, geography, history of art, and modern languages will find this book an important reference.

The Mongols and the West provides a comprehensive survey of relations between the Catholic West and the Mongol Empire from the first appearance of Chinggis (Genghis) Khan’s armies on Europe’s horizons in 1221 to the battle of Tannenberg in 1410. This book has been designed to provide a synthesis of previous scholarship on relations between the Mongols and the Catholic world as well as to offer new approaches and conclusions on the subject. It considers the tension between Western hopes of the Mongols as allies against growing Muslim powers and the Mongols’ position as conquerors with their own agenda, and evaluates the impact of Mongol-Western contacts on the West’s expanding knowledge of the world. This second edition takes into account the wealth of scholarly literature that has emerged in the years since the previous edition and contains significantly extended chapters on trade and mission. It charts the course of military confrontation and diplomatic relations between the Mongols and the West, and re-examines the commercial opportunities offered to Western merchants by Mongol rule and the failure of Catholic missionaries to convert the Mongols to Christianity. Fully revised and containing a range of maps, genealogical tables and both European and non-European sources throughout, The Mongols and the West is ideal for students of medieval European history and the crusades.

The twelve articles in this volume promote the growing contacts between historical linguistics and medieval cultural studies. They fall into two groups. One examines the interrelation in Anglo-Saxon England between Latin and vernacular language and culture, investigating language-contact between Old English and Latin, the extent of Latinity in early medieval Britain, Anglo-Saxons’ attitudes to Classical culture, and relationships between Anglo-Saxon and Continental Christian thought. Another group uses historical linguistics as a method in the wider cultural study of medieval England, examining syntactic change, dialect, translation and semantics to give us access to politeness, demography, and cultural constructions of colour, thought and time. The volume will be of particular interest to scholars of Anglo-Saxon culture and Middle English language. Contributors are Olga Timofeeva, Alaric Hall, Seppo Heikkinen, Jesse Keskiaho, John Blair, Kathryn A. Lowe, Antonette DiPaolo Healey, Lilla Kopár, C. P. Biggam, Ágnes Kiricsi, Alexandra Fodor and Mari Pakkala-Weckström.