The Middle Ages laid the foundations for the long European and Middle Eastern history of voyaging, colonialism, and expansion: the Papal embassies that took over a year of overland travel to reach Mongolia, Ibn Battuta's thirty years of voyaging to Africa and East Asia, or the arrival of European colonialism in the Americas.With a focus on medieval Europe, this is the first book to cover global medieval travel writing from Iceland to Indonesia, providing unrivalled insight into the experiences of early travellers.Paying special attention to race, gender and manuscript culture, the volume's vast geographical and linguistic range provides expert coverage of Persian, Arabic, Hebrew, and Chinese literature.An essential resource for teaching and research, the collection challenges established views of the Middle Ages and Western ideas of history.