'Despite its long history, travel literature has not been paid due attention by academic scholars until 1990s. Post-modern theories such as post-colonialism and post-structuralism are habitually adopted as analytic instruments in the process of critical reading on travel texts. A brief review of travel literature and its study, the nature of travel literature and its exoticism, and the role played by travel literature in the construction of national identity are carefully discussed in the present thesis.' (Publication abstract)