3.5 stars, rounding up to 4. There's some really interesting stuff here, although in a few of the essays the interesting stuff is smothered by some rather turgid writing - I know that academic style isn't riveting at the best of times, but still. In fairness, most of the chapters here (and most of the authors) are readable enough, and their topic - the development and themes of travel writing - genuinely held my attention. Most interesting to me was Part One (of three), which dealt broadly with surveys of the state of travel writing in different time periods. This historical approach focused on the development and social context of the genre, and while I enjoy travel writing I never appreciated how broad a history it has before. Also well worth reading were the case studies of Part Two, which looked at how travel writing constructed narratives - not always truthful ones - about Arabia, the Amazon, Tahiti, Calcutta, Ireland, the Congo, and California. For all the different destinations, the one shared characteristic of analysis here seems to be how much travel writing prioritises the expectations and culture of the writer, as opposed to the destination the writer is ostensibly (and completely unobjectively) observing. Which makes total sense once you think about it...