Our histories of global exploration and encounter in the long eigh-teenth century are often drawn from the scientific voyages of discovery and their richly illustrated books, like John Ross’s A Voyage of Discovery(1819). Ross voyaged in the Enlightenment tradition of Bougainville and Cook, who had returned to Europe in ships laden with knowledge in the form …
Two months after his arrival in Ottoman Syria in September 1860, the Prussianbureaucrat Johann Ludwig Guido von Rehfues (1818–97) and his colleagues setoff on a hauntingly memorable journey to Damascus.² Leaving Beirut early in themorning, they rodefirst up Mount Lebanon. From all the heights to which theirpath took them, they could see the smoke-stained rubble of onceflourishingvillages in …