VOLUME I
I. The Foundations of Civilization to 500 BCE
1. Creation Myths and Flood Stories
Two Sources for Egyptian Creation: Coffin Text Spell and Shabaka Stone
Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet XI: The Babylonian Flood Story
Genesis, Hebrew Creation and the Flood
Hindu Hymn of Origins
Ovid's Metamorphoses, A Roman Version of the Flood Story
Five Fragments of Chinese Cosmology
Popol Vuh: Sacred Book of the Ancient Quiché Maya
The Huarochirí Manuscript (flood story)
Three Creation Stories from Africa: from the Bambara, Wapangwa, and Fang
Australian Aboriginal Myth: Yhi Brings Life to the World
Cherokee Nation: How the World Was Made
2. Heroes and Heroines
Birth and Boyhood of Sargon I
Judges 4-5: The Story of Deborah
Krishna, the Hesitant Hero
Homer's Odyssey: Penelope and Odysseus
Livy's History of Rome: Romulus and Remus
Boudicca's Revolt
Chinese Hero Story
Popol Vuh: The Hero Twins Bring Corn to the People
Eleio: A Hawaiian Runner Cheats Death and Pleases the King
3. Earliest Journeys
Epic of Gilgamesh: Journey to Dilmun and the Search for Everlasting Life
Genesis, Chapters 12-13: The Journeys of Abraham
An Egyptian in Eastern Palestine: The Tale of Sinuhe
Jason and the Voyage of the Argo
The Journey of the Emperor Mu (China)
Hung and Mi Journey to the Dragon Emperor's Palace (Vietnam)
Kyazimba's Journey to the Sun (Africa)
Peyote Hunt: The Sacred Journey of the Huichol Indians
II. Classical Civilizations, 500 BCE-800 CE
4. Greco-Roman and European World
Pericles' Funeral Oration
Cornelius Nepos on the Education and Character of Epanimondas
Juvenal on Greeks in Rome
Polybius on Rome
Melinno's Hymn to Rome
Julius Caesar on Britain
Tacitus, the Germania
Priscus and a Syrian, Debate on Rome
Ammianus Marcellinus, On the Huns
Chiu-t'ang-Shu, China and the Roman Orient
5. The Ancient Middle East
Inscription from Moab (the Moabite Stone)
Description of Moab from the Old Testament
Inscription of Shalmaneser II
Description of Nineveh from the Old Testament
Herodotus on Persia
Xenophon on Cyrus the Great
Hou-Han-Shu of Fan Yeh on Parthia and Tatsin
Chang Ch'ien, a Han Ambassador to Bactria
Egeria (Iberian nun) on Christian customs in Jerusalem
6. The Americas
Olmec Priest Emerging from Cave--illustration
Jaguar Toy--illustration
Chavin Pot--illustration
Chavin Zoomorphic Heads--illustration
Quetzalcoatl at Teotihuacan--illustration
Ch'ac Head from Uxmal--illustration
Jaguar Mural at Cacaxitla--illustration
Two-Headed Jaguar Sculpture from Uxmal--illustration
7. Africa
Golden African Heads--illustration
The Selection of Aspalta as King of Kush
Ezana Inscription (4th c. bc)
Herodotus on Africa
Pliny on Africa
Legal Inscription from Carthage
Aristotle's Politics on Carthage
Greco-Roman Vases--illustration
Procopius on Mauretania
8. South and Southwest Asia
Megasthenes in Pataliputra (the Mauryan capital of India)
Notes from a Greco-Egyptian Manual of Navigation (Periplus Maris Erythraei)
Travels of Fa-hien (a Buddhist Pilgrim in India)
The Tale of Savitri (from the Mahabharata)
Sakuntala's Departure (from Kalidasa's "The Recognition of Sakuntala")
The Perfect Bride (from Dandin's Adventures of Ten Princes)
9. East and Southeast Asia
Japan in Chinese Dynastic Histories
An Account of an Early Embassy from China to a Kingdom in Southeast Asia
The Mission of Sung-yun and Hwei-sang to Obtain Buddhist Books in the West
Selections from "The Manyoshu" (The Collection of Myriad Leaves)
"Social Relations" by Wang Fu
Accounts About Two Women: A Mother and a Wife, by Liu Hsiang and Feng Yen
III. Expanding Civilizations, 800 to 1500
10. Europe
The Markets of Seville
Memoirs of a Castilian Noblewoman
Usamah Ibn-Munqidh Describes the Character of the Franks
Ibn Fadlan's Account of Vikings in Early Russia
Journal of Friar William of Rubruck to Russia
The Conversion of Catherine of Louvain
Medieval Student Life
Boccaccio on the Black Death
Anna Comnena on the Franks
Christine de Pisan on the Condition of Women
11. Africa
Al-Mas'udi on the Ivory Trade
Buzurg Ibn Shahiyar of Ramhormuz: A Tenth-Century Slaving Adventure
Ibn Battuta: A Visit to Zeila, Mogadishu, Mombasa, and Kilwa Kisiwani (1331)
Ancient Ghana and the Customs of its Inhabitants
Vasco da Gama's Logbook Describing East Africans
Mansa Musa's Pilgrimage (Egypt, Mecca)
Description of a Portuguese Voyage to Sao Thome about 1540
Portuguese Description of Ethiopia (1520)
12. South and Southwest Asia
Indian Poet's Observations: "The Paradise" and "The Cultural Experience" by Khusrau
Alberuni's India
Ibn Battuta in Delhi
Ibn Battuta in Bengal
Arab Writers in Zabag (SE Asia)
The Wonders of the East, by Friar Jordanus
A Journal of the First Voyage of Vasco da Gama, 1497-1499
13. East and Southeast Asia
The Record of a Pilgrimage to China from a Japanese Monk's Diary (Ennin)
The Travels of Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela
Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo's Embassy to the Court of Timour
Two Chinese Descriptions of Malacca
Chinese Expeditions to the West (Cheng Ho)
"The Problems of Women," by Yuan Tsai
From The Diary of Lady Murasaki
Lady Sarashina, Selection from As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams
14. The Americas
Vikings in America: Selections from the Vinland Saga
Fray Bernardino de Sahagún and the Florentine Codex
Amerigo Vespucci's Letter from a New World
Cortés' Letter to Emperor Charles V on Mexico
Fray Diego de Landa's Description of the Ucatan
Girolamo Benzoni's Description of the New World
André Thevet's Description of Florida Natives
Hans Staden on the Tupinamba (Brazil)
Jacques Cartier on the Natives of Stadacona (Canada)
Antonio Pigafetta on South American Natives (from Magellan's voyage)
VOLUME II
I. 1500-1800
1. East and Southeast Asia
Francois Caron in Japan
Fray Sebastien Manrique in India
Toyotomi Hideyoshi: Letter to the Viceroy of the Indies
Merchants in the Ming by Chan Han
John Bell on China
2. South and Southwest Asia
Ludovico di Varthema on Damascus
Geoffrey Ducket on Persia
John Chardin on Persia
Evliya Efendi on Persia
Francois Valentijn on Ceylon
Pietro della Valle describes India
Niccolo Manucci in India
Babur, "Description of Hindustan"
Abu'l Fazl, "The Imperial Harem"
3. Africa
Leo Africanus describes the Kingdom of Mali
Bernadino's Journey on the East African Coast
Olaudah Equiano on the Slave Trade
J. Crassons de Medeuil on the French Slave Trade
Anthony Knivet in Kongo and Angola
John dos Santos on Ethiopia
Francis Vas d'Almada with Castaways on the South East African Coast
Barbot on Guinea, West Africa
Andre Alvares de Almada on the Gambia
4. The Americas and Oceania
Sir Walter Raleigh describes the North Shore of South America
Father Cristoval de Acuna's Expedition Down the Amazon
Fray Martin de Munilla describes the Natives of the New Hebrides
Thomas Gage in Guatemala
Fray Diego Duran's History of the Aztecs
Burgomaster Witsen Travels to New Guinea
5. Europe
Giovanni della Casa, Galateo
Antonio de Beatis Describes Lower Germany (1517)
Antonio de Beatis Looks at Customs in France (1517)
Fox, the Servant of Henry Cavendish, writes on Serbia, Bulgaria, Wallachia, and Moldavia
Thomas Coryat: An English Protestant Examines Roman Catholicism in Paris (1608)
Robert Bargrave Describes Turkey (1608)
Peter Andreevich Tolstoi Reports on Venice and a Hospital in Milan
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu on Women at the Court of Charles VI, Vienna (1716)
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu Praises Turkish Women and Their Clothing (1717)
II. 1800-1918
6. East and Southeast Asia
Marianne North in Sarawak
Nellie Bly: 120 Hours in Japan
"The Movement Against Footbinding"
Lafcadio Hearn's "First Day in the Orient"
Isabella Bird Bishop in Canton
George Macartney on Chinese Life
Mary Fraser, a Diplomat's Wife in Japan
Shimazaki Toson: A Father's Death and Funeral
7. South and Southwest Asia
John Lloyd Stephens on Jerusalem
Rabbi David d'Beth Hillel on Indian Jews
Fanny Parks on India
Emma Roberts in Delhi
Helen Douglas Mackenzie in Delhi
Mark Twain on the Towers of Silence in Bombay
Rabindranath Tagore on Shazadpur, Bengal
Nirad Chaudhuri on Calcutta
8. Africa
Mohandas K. Gandhi, Attorney to South Africa
John Duncan Among the Whydah and Dahomey in 1845
P. Dallons on Zanzibar
Robert Ashe, Missionary to Uganda in 1892
Paul B. Du Chaillu in Africa during 1863
Charles Andersson Explores South Western Africa
David Livingstone from Cape of Good Hope to the Zambezi River
Mollien in Gambia and Senegal Rivers
Mungo Park on Niger River
Agnes McAllister in Africa
9. The Americas and Oceania
Harriet Martineau Discusses Society in America
Inoue Ryokichi, "A Japanese Student's Views of the United States"
Pavel N. Golovin, A Russian Naval Officer in San Francisco
John Kenneth Turner Comments on Mexico During the Revolution of 1910
Frank G. Carpenter Offers Advice to U.S. Businessmen in South America
Edward B. Tylor Stops in Cuba on His Way to Mexico
John L. Stephens Describes Mayan Society in the 19th Century
J. J. von Tschudi on the People of Peru
James Bryce about U.S. Corporations in South America
Paul Gauguin Comments on Society in the Marquesas Islands
Mark Twain in the Sandwich Islands
Meriwether Lewis Recounts Exchanges with Native Americans at the Continental Divide
10. Europe
Fray Servando Teresa de Mier: A Mexican Friar Describes the Palais Royal in Paris
Seishisai and Rai San'yo: Two Japanese Views of the Dutch, English, and Russians
Liu His-hung: A Chinese Ambassador Describes the British Upper Classes
Jack London: An American Novelist Describes London's East End
Harry de Windt: An English Correspondent Describes the Balkans
Sir Edwin Pears: An Englishman Describes a Turkish Wedding
Theodore Dreiser: An American Author Describes German Trains
Emile Zola on the Industrial Poor in France
III. 1918-the Present
11. East and Southeast Asia
Margery Finn Brown, "An American Looks at Japan"
Nikos Kazantzakis on the Chinese and Death
Nikos Kazantzakis on Japanese Gardens
Jan Myrdal on Wedding Customs in a Chinese Village
Cleo Odzer in Thailand
Nie Zeng Jiffen on China
Emmanuel John Hevi as "An African Student in China"
Nguyen Long on Communist Vietnam
Anchee Min, A Little Girl During the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution
Joan Robinson, A British Economist in China
Dr. Miyamoto's Visits to Japan
12. South and Southwest Asia
Colette Modiano in Jerusalem
Elizabeth Warnock Fernea Visiting an Iraqui Harem
Ella Maillart in Afghanistan
Anthony Weller on Peshawar
Ellura Winters in Chittagong
Lewis Thompson in India
William O. Douglas in India
Mark Tully at the Kumbh Mela
Steve Coll in a Himalayan Village
Mahadevi Varma's Memoir about a Peasant Woman
Nayantara Sahgal on Indira Nehru Gandhi's Wedding
13. Africa
Pico Iyer, Global Traveler in Ethiopia
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas on the Kalahari
George Orwell on Marrakech
Peter Biddlecombe Describes a Train Ride in Cameroon
Margery Perham on Nigeria
Andre Gide on the Congo
Julian Huxley on a Kikuyu Market
Dervla Murphy on Women in Cameroon
Robert D. Kaplan on Sierra Leone
Naboth Mokgatle on South Africa
Flora Nwapa, Efuru
14. The Americas and Oceania
Seth K. Humphrey on Tonga
John Clytus, an American Black in Cuba
Phillips Russell Describes Mayan Peoples
Charles H. Baker on South American Cuisine
Nathum Goldmann on Jewish Life in the United States
Jin K. Kim, a Korean in the United States
Poranee Natadecha-Sponsel, a Thai Educator in the United States
Buwei Yang Chao Observes Life in the United States
Clemente Orozco, a Mexican Muralist Portrays Life in New York City
15. Europe
William C. White on Housing and Women's Lives in Moscow
Zara Witkin Describes a Soviet Collective Farm
Haruko Ichikawa Describes a Spanish Bullfight
Philip Gibbs on the Nazi Movement in Germany
Alexander Werth, Selection from Russia at War
Morris Deutch on German Women During WWII
John F. Kennedy on Conditions in Germany in the Summer of 1945
Nirad C. Chaudhuri on the United Kingdom
Guido Piovene on Sexual Freedom in Sweden
B.N. Misra on Liverpool
Hans Magnus Enzensberger on Warsaw in 1986
