The Riddle and the Knight: In Search of Sir John Mandeville, the World's Greatest Traveller
Sir John Mandeville, a medieval English knight, was either one of  history's greatest explorers or one of its greatest liars, depending on how one  reads the pages of hisTravels.Christopher Columbus took his words as a  veritable guidebook, using it, Giles Milton writes, to convince the Spanish  crown to fund his American voyages. The Victorians were not so kind, dismissing  the wanderer--who, after all, wrote that in the Indian Ocean "there is a race of  great stature, like giants ... they have one eye only, in the middle of their  foreheads"--as an uncritical fabulist at best, a charlatan at worst.Giles Milton, a student of exploration history, gives us reasons aplenty to  question Mandeville's accuracy at points, but he is inclined to think that the  knight actually did see at least some of the things he reported in his  enormously influential book. Tracing Mandeville's trail to the Middle East and  beyond, he considers the historical realities that underlie Mandeville's tales,  from the gems that lie strewn among the reeds of Indonesia (which Milton guesses  might be crystal-like secretions from bamboo plants) to the fabulous Christian  kingdom of Prester John somewhere far out on the plains of Mongolia (where,  Milton reminds us, Nestorian Christians were once common). His conclusion, well  argued in the course of this witty and delightful book, is that although  Mandeville is not always taken literally, he really did go crusading off in  distant lands, and he certainly deserves to be rediscovered today, not least for  what his work tells us about the medieval mind.Readers new to Mandeville will find this a spirited introduction, and those  already fond ofThe Travelswill enjoy following Milton's parallel  voyages.--Gregory McNamee--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.