Mohammad Sakhnini is a senior lecturer in English Studies at Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi.

“Sakhnini’s impressive and original study of late eighteenth-century British travelogues illuminates both imperial history and Enlightenment ecology. Anxious to establish the fastest routes between England and India, intrepid agents of the East India Company charted itineraries between Aleppo and Basra, but, becoming fascinated by the Syrian desert and its inhabitants, projected agricultural improvements at every turn”— Gerald MacLean, Emeritus Professor, University of Exeter.

• Acknowledgment; Introduction; Chapter One Improvement of Knowledge: John Carmichael’s A Journey From Aleppo to Busserah, Over the Desert (1772); Chapter Two Polite Englishman in the East: Edward Ives’s Journey from Persia to England (1773); Chapter Three Commerce, Virtue and Improvement: Abraham Parsons’s Travel in Asia and Africa (1808); Chapter Four Henry Abbott: A Cosmopolitan in Cities and Deserts; Chapter Five Eyles Irwin’s Travels: The Politics of Adventure in the Levant; Chapter Six Political and Moral Improvement: Donald Campbell, A Journey Overland to India Partly by A Route Never Gone Before by Any European (1795); Conclusion; Unpublished Manuscripts; Reference List; Index

Mohammad Sakhnini is a senior lecturer in English Studies at Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi.

“Sakhnini’s impressive and original study of late eighteenth-century British travelogues illuminates both imperial history and Enlightenment ecology. Anxious to establish the fastest routes between England and India, intrepid agents of the East India Company charted itineraries between Aleppo and Basra, but, becoming fascinated by the Syrian desert and its inhabitants, projected agricultural improvements at every turn”— Gerald MacLean, Emeritus Professor, University of Exeter.

• Acknowledgment; Introduction; Chapter One Improvement of Knowledge: John Carmichael’s A Journey From Aleppo to Busserah, Over the Desert (1772); Chapter Two Polite Englishman in the East: Edward Ives’s Journey from Persia to England (1773); Chapter Three Commerce, Virtue and Improvement: Abraham Parsons’s Travel in Asia and Africa (1808); Chapter Four Henry Abbott: A Cosmopolitan in Cities and Deserts; Chapter Five Eyles Irwin’s Travels: The Politics of Adventure in the Levant; Chapter Six Political and Moral Improvement: Donald Campbell, A Journey Overland to India Partly by A Route Never Gone Before by Any European (1795); Conclusion; Unpublished Manuscripts; Reference List; Index

Mohammad Sakhnini is a senior lecturer in English Studies at Khalifa University, Abu Dhabi.

“Sakhnini’s impressive and original study of late eighteenth-century British travelogues illuminates both imperial history and Enlightenment ecology. Anxious to establish the fastest routes between England and India, intrepid agents of the East India Company charted itineraries between Aleppo and Basra, but, becoming fascinated by the Syrian desert and its inhabitants, projected agricultural improvements at every turn”— Gerald MacLean, Emeritus Professor, University of Exeter.

• Acknowledgment; Introduction; Chapter One Improvement of Knowledge: John Carmichael’s A Journey From Aleppo to Busserah, Over the Desert (1772); Chapter Two Polite Englishman in the East: Edward Ives’s Journey from Persia to England (1773); Chapter Three Commerce, Virtue and Improvement: Abraham Parsons’s Travel in Asia and Africa (1808); Chapter Four Henry Abbott: A Cosmopolitan in Cities and Deserts; Chapter Five Eyles Irwin’s Travels: The Politics of Adventure in the Levant; Chapter Six Political and Moral Improvement: Donald Campbell, A Journey Overland to India Partly by A Route Never Gone Before by Any European (1795); Conclusion; Unpublished Manuscripts; Reference List; Index