ABSTRACT
This chapter1 explores the politics of European adventure in the Middle East with specific focus on the French tradition and, in particular, the prefatory remarks of French travellers from three distinct historical periods. The aim of the chapter is to elaborate how the notion of travel as adventure is transformed in and between the broad historical periods of the late seventeenth century, the late eighteenth century, and the mid-nineteenth century. The premise is that each period is marked by a particular kind of adventure-the first by the exotics of adventure, the second by the science of adventure, and the third by the commerce of adventure.
