"This study examines a range of British travellers' perceptions of Europe and charts their quests to explore and contrast far-flung European frontiers - to Lapland, to the eastern provinces of the Russian empire, the Levant. Using a wide range of eighteenth-century travel accounts, Dolan demonstrates how these narratives were often informed by and designed to address contemporary historical and scientific assessments of the status of modern European civilisation."--BOOK JACKET.