In License to Travel, Patrick Bixby takes the reader on a captivating journey from pharaonic Egypt and Han-dynasty China to the passport controls and crowded refugee camps of today. Along the way, you will:

• Peruse the passports of artists and intellectuals, writers and musicians, ancient messengers and modern migrants.
• See how these seemingly humble documents implicate us in larger narratives about identity, mobility, citizenship, and state authority.
• Encounter intimate stories of vulnerability and desire along with vivid examples drawn from world cinema, literature, art, philosophy, and politics.
• Witness the authority that travel documents exercise over our movements and our emotions as we circulate around the globe.