Divided into thirteen chapters, Parallel Journeys: Eurasian History Through Travelers’ Eyes (400 BCE–1936 CE) originated as a reader of primary sources for the editor’s undergraduate course “Eurasian Currents.” According to Anthony Barbieri-Low, “the method of this literary anthology will be to juxtapose the account of a Western and an Eastern traveler during each time period structured under a specific theme in a global, connected history” (3). Some of these travelers are well known: the Chinese Buddhist monks Faxian and Xuanzang; the Italians Marco Polo and Matteo Ricci in the medieval and early modern periods; and in modern times, the well-known writers Liang Qichao and Edgar Snow. Others are obscure but no less interesting, such as Rabban Sauma, a Uighur or Turkish Nestorian Christian born in Mongol Beijing, who traveled to Ilkhanate Persia, Italy, and France; or Eliza Bridgman, the first female Christian missionary to visit China, shortly after the Opium War.

Chapter 1 pairs the Indica by Ctesias of Cnidus (ca. 440–390 BCE), the first extant western account of India, with the Shanhai jing (Classic of Mountains and Seas), a composite text of early Chinese geographic fantasy. The two texts in Chapter 2 were written by political operatives: Megasthenes was sent as ambassador by his Seleucid monarch to the Mauryan court, resulting in the Indica; and the parallel text is from the record of Zhang Qian (d. 114 BCE), a Han-dynasty envoy who traveled for thirteen years in today’s Xinjiang and Inner Asia. Turning to the early Indian Ocean trade in Chapter 3, the editor selected Navigating around the Red Sea, written by a Greek merchant living in Roman Egypt, and Voyage to Huangzhi by the Han historian Ban Gu (32–92 CE), to illustrate the respective geographical knowledge of East and West about the maritime Silk Route. Chapter 4 explores notions of faraway empires, pairing the writings of famous Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder with the obscure Chinese historian Yu Huan. The hazy knowledge of the Roman and Chinese empires can be explained by the fact that neither of these writers ever traveled outside his own realm. Turning to religious sources, Chapter 5 includes writings by two early medieval Chinese Buddhist monks, Faxian and Xuanzang, pilgrims to India, together with the brief notices on China and India in the Christian Topography by Cosmas Indicopleustus.

The rise of Islam inaugurated a new period in Eurasian encounters, as Muslim merchants began to dominate the Indian Ocean trade. The first text in Chapter 6 is by Du Huan, a Chinese soldier captured in the Battle of Talas River (751 CE), where Abbasid forces defeated a Tang army and halted further Chinese expansion into Inner Asia. Having spent ten years in the Abbasid caliphate before his return to China, Du Huan wrote the first personal account in Chinese of early Islamic state and society. Excerpts from his account are paired with Accounts of China and India (851 CE), a composite of accounts by Muslim merchants who traveled to India and China. The rise of the Mongols in the thirteenth century created the first unified Eurasian political regime. Chapter 7 introduces William of Rubruck, a Franciscan friar and papal envoy to the Mongol court, and the lesser-known but more fascinating figure of Raban Sauma, a Nestorian Christian who traveled from Beijing to Persia, then onto Rome and Paris. Two descriptions of the world are included in Chapter 8: the Account of Foreign Countries by Zhao Rugua, a Song-dynasty official who never left China, and the veteran Venetian traveler Marco Polo, who spent his youth in Asia. Under the title “Epic Voyages,” Chapter 9 pairs Ma Huan, an official on Zheng He’s maritime expeditions in the early Ming dynasty, with the Portuguese mercenary Galeote Pereira (1561). We find an odd couple in Chapter 10: the famous Italian Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) and the Cantonese sailor Xie Qinggao (1765–1821), who lived respectively in China and Portugal.

Chapters 11 to 13 introduce readers to the modern world, beginning with the famous account of his journey to China in 1793 by Lord George Macartney, the first British ambassador to Qing China. This is followed by the observations of Guo Songtao, the first Chinese ambassador to Britain in 1877–78. Political ambassadors are followed by “cultural ambassadors” in Chapter 12. The Englishwoman Eliza Jane Bridgman was the first female missionary in China and wrote of her impressions of Chinese women in Hong Kong and Guangdong, whereas the scholar Wang Tao, a visitor to Britain, was impressed by the progress and prosperity of the West. Chapter 13 includes three writers—Liang Qichao, Shan Shili, and Edgar Snow. A reformer in exile, Liang wrote of his impressions of the United States; Shan, the spouse of a Chinese diplomat, studied European history and geography; and the journalist Snow became famous for his interview of Mao Zedong during the War against Japan.

In each instance, the editor is diligent in providing context for the reader. He introduces each text and author, summarizes the content of the work, gives succinct and often interesting excerpts, and provides useful bibliographical references. The reader is also guided by a series of maps and figures and entertained with accounts of monsters and pygmies. Barbieri-Low is also to be congratulated for his effort to include female voices and texts from a wide perspective.

The many virtues of this anthology notwithstanding, the reader may be left with a sense of randomness. What exactly is the principle of selection? Barbieri-Low states that he wants to pair Eastern and Western voices. There are thirteen Chinese voices in the text (including Sauma) and twelve from the West (Greek, European, and American). In addition to views of China and the West, India and Inner Asia are also the subjects of these travelogues and accounts of foreign lands. The importance of Islam is ill-served by the inclusion of only one Muslim source. The well-known account of Ibn Battuta could well have been included. Among the notable absences are voices from Inner Asia -- the Sogdians, Mongols, Turks, and Russians who were the peoples who made the history of Eurasia. At times, the pairing seems quirky. Why not pair Matteo Ricci, the Jesuit missionary, with a Chinese Catholic who sojourned in the West? The historical value of the texts also differs widely: fantasy texts such as the Shanhai jing and armchair accounts are clearly less valuable as sources than those compiled from personal experiences.

Of the two aims in this anthology—juxtaposing Eastern and Western accounts and contributing to a unified history of Eurasia—the editor is more successful in achieving one than the other. The reader is well served with sources that document the Sino-western encounter between the sixteenth and twentieth century. However, the history of Eurasia is less well covered, with the maritime silk route much better covered than the land route. The maps are a good resource, but Islamic cartography is neglected, even though the editor cites the important study of Park Hyunhee, Mapping the Chinese and Islamic Worlds. The Catalan map included in this volume can trace its heritage to earlier, albeit cruder Arab maps of the world. Another weakness is the lack of any history of Eurasia, especially Inner Asia, after the collapse of the Mongol Empire. In the end, the reader is left with multiple and interesting images from these sources but troubled by the incompleteness of this anthology.