Abu Abdalla Ibn Battuta (1304-1354) was one of the greatest travelers of pre-modern times. He traveled to Black Africa twice. He reported about the wealthy, multi-cultural trading centers at the African East coast, such as Mombasa and Kilwa, and the warm hospitality he experienced in Mogadishu. He also visited the court of Mansa Musa and neighboring states during its period of prosperity from mining and the Trans-Saharan trade. He wrote disapprovingly of sexual integration in families and of hostility towards the white man. Ibn Battuta's description is a unique document of the high culture, pride, and independence of Black African states in the fourteenth century. This book is one of the most important documents about Black Africa written by a non-European medieval historian.

Ibn Battutah - ethnographer, biographer, anecdotal historian and occasional botanist - was just twenty-one when he set out in 1325 from his native Tangier on a pilgrimage to Mecca. He did not return to Morocco for another twenty-nine years, travelling instead through more than forty countries on the modern map, covering seventy-five thousand miles and getting as far north as the Volga, as far east as China and as far south as Tanzania. He wrote of his travels, and comes across as a superb ethnographer, biographer, anecdotal historian and occasional botanist and gastronome. With this edition by Tim Mackintosh-Smith, The Travels of Ibn Battutah takes its place alongside other indestructible masterpieces of the travel-writing genre. Designed to appeal to the book lover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.

Abu Abdalla Ibn Battuta (1304-1354) was one of the greatest travelers of pre-modern times. He traveled to Black Africa twice. He reported about the wealthy, multi-cultural trading centers at the African East coast, such as Mombasa and Kilwa, and the warm hospitality he experienced in Mogadishu. He also visited the court of Mansa Musa and neighboring states during its period of prosperity from mining and the Trans-Saharan trade. He wrote disapprovingly of sexual integration in families and of hostility towards the white man. Ibn Battuta's description is a unique document of the high culture, pride, and independence of Black African states in the fourteenth century. This book is one of the most important documents about Black Africa written by a non-European medieval historian.

Ibn Batuta (1304-1377) was the greatest of the Arabian travellers of the Middle Ages. Born in Algiers, he spent the years 1325-54 in overland traverse throughout Europe, Asia and much of Africa. He visited Mecca, Persia, Mesopotamia, Arabia, North and East Africa, Asia Minor, Bukhara, Afghanistan, India, Sumatra and China. He eventually settled in Fez in 1354 where he began to write an account of his travels. The resulting narrative is among the most important of the early Arabic texts, providing a primary source for the history and geography of the medieval Arab world. Moreover, the 'Travels' have retained their compelling fascination despite the passage of centuries. Reverend Samuel Lee (1783-1852), English Orientalist and Professor of Arabic at Cambridge was the first to provide an English translation of this text, in 1829. His annotations add greatly to our understanding of the work and provide the student with useful background information. Thus, both for its intrinsic and its historical value, this handsome facsimile of the first edition will be greatly welcomed.