Travel Writing: a Very Short Introduction

"This Very Short Introduction examines the meanings and uses of travel writing from its appearance on clay tablets to the digital age. It shows how the genre not only describes places and the journeys to them, but also communicates the cultural and personal values of its authors, reinforcing and challenging their sense of identity and of the foreign. Tim Youngs discusses questions of the genre's definition and its literary forms, the representation of self and other, the effect of modes of transport on authors' experiences and their stories of travel, and attitudes towards the environment. Throughout he demonstrates how travel writing is a diverse genre that offers a full range of perspectives, often alert to its own processes and viewpoints, and one that casts a critical eye on its authors' home countries as well as on their destinations." --Amazon.com