Robert Launay is Professor of Anthropology at Northwestern University. He is the author of Traders Without Trade: Responses to Change in Two Dyula Communities, Beyond the Stream: Islam and Society in a West African Town, which won the Amaury Talbot Prize, and numerous articles on the anthropology of Islam and Muslim societies in West Africa. He has written extensively on both the contemporary and early history of anthropology, and is completing a new book, Savages, Despots, and Romans: The Urge to Compare and the Origins of Anthropology.

• Acknowledgments xNote on the Text xiiIntroduction 1Robert LaunayPart I The Ancient World 291 The Histories of Herodotus 31Herodotus2 Germany 39TacitusPart II The Middle Ages 47Section II (a) European Travelers 493 The Travels of Marco Polo 51Marco Polo4 The Travels of Sir John Mandeville 63John Mandeville Copyrighted MaterialSection II (b) The Muslim World 715 Travels in Asia and Africa, 1325–1354 73Ibn Battuta6 The Muqaddimah 84Ibn KhaldunPart III The Renaissance 937 History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil, otherwise Called America 95Jean de Léry8 Of Cannibals 106Michel de Montaigne9 Method for the Easy Comprehension of History 114Jean Bodin10 Letter to Joseph Scaliger 125Henri Lancelot Voisin de la PopelinièrePart IV The Seventeenth Century 127Section IV (a) Jesuits and the Comparative Perspective 12911 Natural and Moral History of the Indies 131José de Acosta12 Relation of What Occurred in New France, in the Year 1634 143Paul Le Jeune13 Memoirs and Remarks … Made in Above Ten Years Travels through the Empire of China 151Louis Le Comte14 Customs of the American Indians Compared with the Customs of Primitive Times 159Joseph François LafitauSection IV (b) Globetrotters 17115 Travels in Persia, 1673–1677 173John Chardin16 A New Voyage Round the World 183William DampierPart V The Enlightenment 193Section V (a) The Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns 19517 Of Heroic Virtue 197William Temple18 Of the Origin of Fables 207Bernard le Bovier de FontenelleSection V (b) Putting Words in Their Mouths: Dialogues and Letters 21519 New Voyages to North America 217Baron de Lahontan20 Persian Letters 225Montesquieu21 The Supplément au Voyage de Bougainville 228Denis DiderotSection V (c) Universal History: France 24122 The Spirit of Laws 243Montesquieu23 A Discourse on Inequality 251Jean-Jacques Rousseau24 The Philosophy of History 260Voltaire25 The A, B, C 265VoltaireSection V (d) Universal History: Scotland 27126 Lectures on Jurisprudence 273Adam Smith27 An Essay on the History of Civil Society 277Adam FergusonAuthor Index 289Subject Index 291