Review of Khanmohamadi, Shirin A., 'In Light of Another's Word: European Ethnography in the Middle Ages' (Middle Ages), Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014: cloth; pp. 216; 1 b/w illustration; R.R.P. US$47.50, £31.00; ISBN 9780812245622.

Abstract

Shirin A. Khanmohamodi's first book is a major reworking of her PhD dissertation (Columbia University, 2005). The book improves upon her dissertation, notably in the omission of a slightly awkward chapter on Marie de France's 'Lais' in favour of a new chapter on Jean de Joinville's 'La vie de Saint Louis'. The result is a tighter series of reworked essays that also examine the 'Descriptio Kambriae' of Gerard of Wales, the 'Iterarium' of William of Rubruck, and the 'Travels of John of Mandeville', thus focusing on a genre of medieval writing from the end of the twelfth up to the mid-fourteenth century that some still refer to as "travel literature". The inclusion of Rubruck nonetheless uncomfortably expands the book into realms that cry out for consideration of other authors like the extraordinary Odoric of Pordenone or John of Montecorvino, but such gaps have been recently and admirably filled, for example, by Kim M. Phillips's 'Before Orientalism: Asian Peoples and Cultures in European Travel Writing, 1245-1510' (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013).