Despite innumerable advances in the technologies of publishing, some forms of academic writing still take a long time to proceed from screen to print. For that reason, the arrival of page proofs is always a welcome event: a material reminder that words written perhaps many years ago are soon to find their way into the world. Today I received proofs for a chapter I have written for a forthcoming edited collection, Empire and mobility in the long nineteenth century. The book had its origins in a pair of paper sessions at the 2015 International Conference of Historical Geographers, organised by its editors, Peter Merriman and David Lambert.

Although my understanding of Macintosh has developed significantly in the five years between the conference and the book, I am really very pleased with the way the chapter—”A contested vision of empire: anonymity, authority, and mobility in the reception of William Macintosh’s Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa (1782) “—stands up. I look forward to reading the work of the other contributors when the book is published in June.