Professor Patrick Bixby's "License to Travel" 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, the reader:

Peruses the passports of artists and intellectuals, writers and musicians, ancient messengers and modern migrants. 

Sees how these seemingly humble documents implicate us in larger narratives about identity, mobility, citizenship, and state authority.