The Travels of Ibn Battutah

Ibn Battutahethnographer, bigrapher, anecdotal historian and occasional botanistwas just 21 when he set out in 1325 from his native Tangier on a pilgramage to Mecca. He did not return to Morocco for another 29 years, traveling instead through more than 40countries on the modern map, covering 75,000 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 Mackintosh-Smith, Battuta'sTravelstakes its place alongside other indestructible masterpieces of the travel-writing genre.

Tim Mackintosh-Smith has lived in San'a—the Yemeni capital—for the last twenty years. His acclaimed Travels with a Tangerine: A Journey in the Footnotes of Ibn Battutah won him a Thomas Cook/Daily Telegraph Travel Book Award.