History – Travel Accounts and Culture

Travel accounts, which offer the observations and experiences of individuals who visited foreign lands, can be valuable tools in the study of history. Often they provide information about a foreign society that the native inhabitants did not supply (either because they did not have the means to do so or because, for whatever reason, they did not choose to record such information). Additionally, travel accounts can be viewed as windows into the values of the authors themselves. In many cases, it can be argued that these accounts merely reflect the interests and concerns of their own societies rather than presenting accurate descriptions of actual experiences in foreign lands. Regardless, travel accounts are crucial sources that demonstrate the authors’ worldviews not only of their own society but the view of the society that they are describing.
In 5-7 double-spaced pages, compare and contrast two of the following accounts. You must choose one source from column A and one source from column B.
Column A Column B
Elias al-Musili. An Arab’s Journey Travels of Sir John of Mandeville
The Secret History of the Mongols Ibn Battuta. Travels in Asia and Africa
In this paper you will be carefully examining how members of certain cultures understand and define other cultures that they encounter. The Secret History of the Mongols, while not a travel account proper, does present a number of depictions of the “Other” against which the Genghis Khan’s people are defined. This has been a key aspect of this class to date as we have already introduced you to the “Civilization”/”Barbarian” dichotomy. Yet as history progresses so do the more nuanced definitions of modern cultures.
In your comparison please be certain to address ALL of the following issues:
How does the author understand and define the culture that he is describing? What are the characteristics that he chooses to discuss?
More importantly, why does the author choose these things rather than something else? Here you must come to an understanding of the author’s own biases and intent. What is each author attempting to prove or demonstrate by this source?
As a corollary issue, how do each of these sources reflect upon the author’s own cultural identity, and his motives for writing? What can we, as historians understand through these sources about the author’s own society and therefore cultural identity?

Last Completed Projects