Not So Barren or Uncultivated is at once both an anthology of extracts from British travel accounts and a rich mini-encyclopaedia of personalities, routes and destinations, with references to the historical and literary background of the time . . . Modern travel research is particularly concerned with the problem of the encounter with the “other” in different cultures, and many of the narrative examples in Not So Barren or Uncultivated illustrate this in terms that are both drastic and entertaining.’