by Marco Polo (1998)
Join the 13th century merchants Marco, Niccolo and Maffeo Polo as they journey from their native city of Venice to the faraway land of Cathay, or China. There, young Marco will meet Kublai Khan, the ruler of the vast Mongolian empire. Read about his many adventures serving the Khan in the lands East of Europe, and his adventures coming back home to Venice. This medieval book, dictated by Marco while imprisoned in Genoa, was one of the inspirations of the Age of Exploration during the Renaissance, and it still intrigues readers today to learn of the Polo's adventures in the far East.
I.N. Phelps Stokes
This 6 volume work has inspired loving descriptions. The Wikipedia entry[1] is among the best. Google books posts a note in the Bibliographic Society of America's Papers[2] for 1918 which mentions that the 3rd volume has been published. [1]: [2]:
James Fenimore Cooper
Notions of the Americans in considered Cooper's first work of non-fiction despite a thin overlay of character and plot. Written in the form of a travel narrative, it addresses the widespread ignorance he encountered in Europe about the people and institutions of the United States. It is an exuberant chant of praise for American representative democracy, encapsulating the utopian vision that compelled Cooper's writing career over three decades. The introduction draws on materials never before published. this edition, distinguished by the seal of the Center for Scholarly Editions, is the first resetting of the text since the initial American edition in 1828.
edited and translated by Jürgen Buchenau
"This rich anthology provides a glimpse of modern Mexico through the eyes of foreign observers. Some of these selections are by well-known authors (Alexander von Humboldt, John Reed, B. Traven, Evelyn Waugh). Some are unpublished pieces by little-known writers, and six are available here for the first time in English." "The writings fall into four periods: the transitions to independence and Mexico's first decades as a sovereign country (1800-1867), the era of Liberal modernization (1867-1910), the Mexican Revolution (1910-1940), and the post-World War II era. Four major topics show up repeatedly: ethnicity, gender, and race; cultural differences between Mexicans and foreigners; political stability and instability; and the economy and its impact on Mexicans. Although observers expressed a wide range of view-points on these issues, they agreed in finding a stunning degree of ethnic and regional diversity as well as what they saw as stark contrasts between urban and rural, rich and poor, modernity and tradition." "In addition to Anglo-American authors, the anthology includes selections by German, French, Norwegian, and Spanish authors. Just over a third of the pieces are by women, who offer glimpses of private worlds closed to men, such as convent life, relations between women and their servants, and household affairs"--Page 4 of cover.
Strabo
The <b>*Geographica*</b> (Ancient Greek: Γεωγραφικά, Geōgraphiká), or <b>*Geography*</b>, is an encyclopedia of geographical knowledge, consisting of 17 'books', written in Greek by Strabo, an educated citizen of the Roman empire of Greek descent. Work can have begun on it no earlier than 20 BC. A first edition was published in 7 BC followed by a gap, resumption of work and a final edition no later than 23 AD in the last year of Strabo's life. Strabo probably worked on his Geography and now missing History concurrently, as the Geography contains a considerable amount of historical data. Except for parts of Book 7, it has come down to us complete.