ABSTRACT
The issues addressed in this book were encountered, witnessed, and lived at first hand. Writing in October 1858 on the nature and the consequences of travel and exploration in the nineteenth century, the British social theorist and political commentator Harriet Martineau noted how
One of the discontents of our saucy modern day is at the smallness of the globe we live on: Between the recent discoveries in astronomy, on the one hand, and the prodigious achievements in geographical exploration on the other, together with the saving of time from steam-travelling, we seem to have obtained a command over the spaces of the globe which considerably diminishes the popular reverence for the mysteries of our planet. 1
