1.At the very least, this commentary lacks any overtones of ideological distance or critique that customarily frame recent republications of western travel accounts purveying a similar diet of imperialistic swagger and racial prejudice.
2.For the most part, Goncharov passively fell back on the assumptions he brought with him, or relied—often to his peril—on preparatory reading in Russian and European sources, which purveyed a predictable diet of Eurocentric concepts and hierarchies.