Introduction

This chapter suggests that Perspectives on Travel Writing will contribute to these discussions of differing European strands; of how ideas, people and customs operate within certain known, geo-political parameters, but also how they have come to influence – and be influenced by – other locales, jurisdictions, and cultures. A consequence of work in the past twenty or thirty years on how Europe has viewed and used other parts of the world has been to reinforce an impression of the continent as homogeneous. Yet there are differences within Europe — there are different Europes — and the ways in which those differences are enforced parallel the processes of Othering enacted elsewhere. To address these issues this chapter covers diverse territories and periods. The chapter concludes with Tim Youngs's essay, which also has as its concern the broadening of the idea of travel.