Although Raymond Williams omits ‘politics’ from his Keywords (1976), it was always for him a key element in the production and criticism of cultural texts. In travel writing studies, the most obvious form of politics is ‘geopolitics’, defined as the power relations between states and the geographical factors affecting these. A word not coined until the twentieth century, ‘geopolitics’ covers the influences and ideologies operating through four centuries of European expansion from Columbus onwards. While their provenance may be dubious, Columbus's Journal and Letter to the King and Queen of Spain strike indubitable political stances, revealing Spain's geographical ambitions and the internal politics of the Spanish Court. Similarly, Sir Walter Raleigh's Discoverie of the Large, Rich, and Bewtiful Empyre of Guiana (1596), though unsuccessful in its intent of promoting Raleigh's next voyage and in furthering his political career, was instrumental in seeding the political vision of an English empire overseas (Lorimer 2006).

The involvement of travel writing in imperial practices, such as furthering trade and expansion, as well as its role in articulating a political consciousness of empire, is well known, and this continues to be a theoretical touchstone in many studies (Clark 1999; Smethurst and Kuehn 2009; Miller and Reill 1996; Spurr 1993). The politics of empire can be expressed indirectly when travel writing appears to normalize the asymmetrical relations by which Europe held sway over its colonies. Furthermore, an imperial mindset can shape the form as well as the content of travel writing, as can be seen in the structure and order underlying both scientific and romantic travel writing in the eighteenth century (Smethurst 2013).

Travellers are sometimes motivated by the desire to explore changing political landscapes and alternative ideologies. Helen Maria Williams (1798), who wrote in the aftermath of the French Revolution, and Agnes Smedley (1934), who recorded first-hand the rise of Chinese communism, would fall into this category, alongside more radical ‘game-changers’ like Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara (1996). Travel writing that contemplated political change was especially prevalent in the 1930s as writers anticipated the maelstrom of World War II (Fleming 1936; Auden and Isherwood 1939). This form marks a decisive turn towards political journalism, which for Paul Fussell signals the demise of narratives of travel, to be replaced by more selfconscious writing about contemporary issues.