Numeracy, Otherness, and the Invention of ‘Civilization’ in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Anglo-European Travel Writing

Depictions of numeracy among non-Europeans were a prominent feature of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Anglo-European travel writing, but remain largely overlooked in the extensive scholarship on travel, knowledge, and empire. This article shifts attention from traditionally ‘scientific’ forms of numeracy such as mathematics and astronomy towards more fundamental counting, calculation, and communication skills, to examine the way in which mutually reinforcing hierarchies of otherness and num