Explore the transformative power of early modern travel writing with Joan-Pau Rubiés’ “Travellers and Cosmographers: Studies in the History of Early Modern Travel and Ethnology.” This collection delves into how encounters with new worlds shaped European culture from the Renaissance onwards. Discover how intrepid navigators, merchants, and Jesuit missionaries documented their findings, blending empirical observation with subtle fiction. Rubiés analyzes the diverse images of human diversity generated by these voyages, revealing how they were shaped both by overseas interactions and by European cosmographers’ intellectual agendas. This essential read for history enthusiasts and scholars demonstrates how travel literature, alongside humanism and religious shifts, laid crucial groundwork for the Enlightenment, offering profound insights into the evolution of European thought.