This extraordinary series of observations on England and Ireland complements de Tocqueville's masterpieces on the United States and France in the mid-nineteenth century. These pages are perhaps the most penetrating writings on the spirit of British politics. In effect, as indicated by John Stuart Mill, de Tocqueville was the Montesquieu of the nineteenth century. This is especially the case if one thinks of the present Irish situation. His political acumen reached into the future -which is now our present.

"If one keeps on walking, everything will be alright." So said Danish writer Soren Kierkegaard, and so thought philosophy buff Gary Hayden as he set off on Britain's most challenging trek: to walk from John O'Groats to Land's End. But it wasn't all quaint country lanes, picture-postcard villages and cosy bed and breakfasts. In this humorous, inspiring and delightfully British tale, Gary finds solitude and weary limbs bring him closer to the wisdom of the world's greatest thinkers. Recalling Rousseau's reverie, Bertrand Russell's misery, Plato's love of beauty and Epicurus' joy in simplicity, Walking with Plato offers a breath of fresh, country air and clarity for anyone craving an escape from the humdrum of everyday life.

In 2014, a coup d'etat in Sanaa paved the way for a devastating conflict in Yemen. Doctor Andrew Moscrop cancelled plans to return to the country that he had once called home. Instead, he returned to his diaries and delved into memories of a time when he lived in a rambling old tower house in Sanaa. As the war unfolded, he re-read the accounts of past travellers to the country. And while working in Greece, treating refugees from other Middle Eastern war zones, he began writing a book set in Yemen. Both a personal travelogue and a thought-provoking study of past travellers in Yemen, The Camel's Neighbour offers a unique window into the country. Importantly, it delivers a context and a valuable corrective to the dehumanising stories of conflict and crisis that have characterised this corner of Arabia in recent years. Evocative descriptions of Sanaa and its unique cityscape, as well as empathetic portrayals of people encountered and events experienced, all create a narrative by turns contemplative and unexpected. The author finds himself caught up in the fallout of the Danish Cartoon Crisis, is involved in an outbreak of polio, and witnesses close-up the distinctly undemocratic re-election of Yemen's President. Meanwhile, his sense of humour is tested when he gatecrashes the Queen's birthday party at the British Embassy and is urinated upon by a goat during a hair-raising car journey. Examining the impressions of earlier visitors, Moscrop explores how Yemen has been seen and understood by foreigners from Europe and America. These past visitors include blundering missionaries, avaricious merchants, aristocratic Englishmen, and unlikely spies such as Norman Lewis and Freya Stark. Moscrop delivers an intriguing and original perspective on Western encounters with the Islamic world, examining the imagery and cliches by which Yemen has been represented from the sixteenth century to the present. Ultimately, he unravels a story of how Yemen became an 'unknown country' with a 'forgotten war'.

Based on acclaimed author Zora Neale Hurston's personal experiences in Haiti and Jamaica--where she participated as an initiate rather than just an observer during her visits in the 1930s--"Tell My Horse" is a fascinating firsthand account of the mysteries of Voodoo. An invaluable resource and remarkable guide to Voodoo practices, rituals, and beliefs, it is a travelogue into a dark, mystical world that offers a vividly authentic picture of ceremonies, customs, and superstitions.

“She was part of the ‘stunt girl’ movement that was very important in the 1880s and 1890s as these big, mass-circulation yellow journalism papers came into the fore.” –Brooke Kroeger Around the World in Seventy-Two Days (1890) is a travel narrative by American investigative journalist Nellie Bly. Proposed as a recreation of the journey undertaken by Phileas Fogg in Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days (1873), Bly’s journey was covered in Joseph Pulitzer’s popular newspaper the New York World, inspiring countless others to attempt to surpass her record. At the time, readers at home were encouraged to estimate the hour and day of Bly’s arrival, and a popular board game was released in commemoration of her undertaking. Embarking from Hoboken, noted investigative journalist Nellie Bly began a voyage that would take her around the globe. Bringing only a change of clothes, money, and a small travel bag, Bly travelled by steamship and train through England, France—where she met Jules Verne—Italy, the Suez Canal, Ceylon, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan. Sending progress reports via telegraph, she made small reports back home while recording her experiences for publication upon her return. Despite several setbacks due to travel delays in Asia, Bly managed to beat her estimated arrival time by several days despite making unplanned detours, such as visiting a Chinese leper colony, along the way. Unbeknownst to Bly, her trip had inspired Cosmopolitan’s Elizabeth Brisland to make a similar circumnavigation beginning on the exact day, launching a series of copycat adventures by ambitious voyagers over the next few decades. Despite being surrounded by this air of popularity and competition, however, Bly took care to make her journey worthwhile, showcasing her skill as a reporter and true pioneer of investigative journalism. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Nellie Bly’s Around the World in Seventy-Two Days is a classic work of American travel literature reimagined for modern readers.

From its very first contact with the West, India has been subject to great mystification. India’s long history, the survival of ancient rituals, and its variety of languages and cultures, continues to fascinate.

This narrative is intertwined with a newer one that sees the frenetic change of a society at the forefront of innovation. Success stories coexist alongside stories of daily struggle. A large slice of the population still does not have access to drinking water, and agriculture (still the main source of livelihood for most of the 1.3 billion people who live there) is threatened by climate change. India is a country that does not know how to eradicate one of the most infamous forms of classism/racism: the caste system. From the resistance of the Kashmiri people to that of atheists – hated by all religious communities – from the dances of the ‘hijra’ in Koovagam to the success of the female wrestler Vinesh Phogat, learn about the contradictory, terrible and joyful chaos that lies at the heart of India.

Samuel Pepys walked round London for miles. The 21/2 miles to Whitehall from his house near the Tower of London was accomplished on an almost daily basis, and so many of his professional conversations took place whilst walking that the streets became for him an alternative to his office. With Walking Pepys's London, the reader will come to know life in London from the pavement up and see its streets from the perspective of this renowned diarist. The city was almost as much a character in Pepys's life as his family or friends, and the book draws many parallels between his experience of 17th-century London and the lives of Londoners today. Colliss Harvey's new book reconstructs the sensory and emotional experience of the past, bringing geography, biography and history into one. Full of fascinating details and written with extraordinary sensitivity, Walking Pepys's London is an unmissable exploration into the places that made the greatest English diarist of all time.

A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains (1879) is a work of travel literature by British explorer Isabella Bird. Adventurous from a young age, Bird gained a reputation as a writer and photographer interested in nature and the stories and cultures of people around the world. A bestselling author and the first woman inducted into the Royal Geographical Society, Bird is recognized today as a pioneering woman whose contributions to travel writing, exploration, and philanthropy are immeasurable. In 1872—after a year of sailing from Britain to Australia and Hawaii—Isabella Bird journeyed by boat to San Francisco before making her way over land through California and Wyoming to the Colorado Territory. There, she befriended an outdoorsman named Rocky Mountain Jim, who guided her throughout the vast wilderness of Colorado and accompanied her during a journey of over 800 miles. Traveling on foot and on horseback—Bird was an experienced and skillful rider—the two formed a curious but formidable pair, eventually reaching the 14,259 foot (4346 m) summit of Longs Peak, making Bird one of the first women to accomplish the feat. A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains, Bird’s most iconic work, was a bestseller upon publication, and has since inspired generations of readers. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Isabella Bird’s A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains is a classic of American literature and travel writing reimagined for modern readers.

In "The Waiting Land" (first published in 1967) Dervla Murphy affectionately portrays the people of Nepal's different tribes, the customs of an ancient, complex civilization and the country's natural grandeur and beauty. This is the third of Dervla Murphy's early travel books: an exploration of Nepal by a feisty, generous-hearted young Irish woman. Yet it can also be seen as the completion of a trilogy of books concerned with her experience of self- sufficient mountain cultures, first tasted in crossing Persia and Afghanistan in "Full Tilt", and deepened with her experience of working with Tibetan refugees in the frontiers of Northern India, as told in "Tibetan Foothold". Having settled in a village in the Pokhara Valley to work at a Tibetan refugee camp, she makes her home in a tiny, vermin-infested room over a stall in the bazaar. In diary form, she describes her various journeys by air, by bicycle and on foot into the remote and mountainous Lantang region on the border of Tibet. Murphy's charm and sensitivity as a writer and traveller reveal not only the vitality of an age-old civilization facing the challenge of Westernisation, but the wonder and excitement of her own remarkable adventures.

On saving the world and other triumphant failures... As a child, young Kenyan Jess de Boer knew that one day she would save the world. Leaving behind the comfort of home she sets out to make her dream a reality. Many continents, adventures and a few hilarious mishaps later, Jess returns to Africa to dedicate herself to a new passion - beekeeping. Follow the beautifully illustrated misadventures of a young, modern-day explorer as she tackles the enormous challenges of aid in Africa, environmental concerns and conservation issues - often with humorous and dramatic results. While saving the world isn't as easy as it seems, we can make a positive change, one little bee at a time!

First published in 1982. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

'Witty, polished, honest and insightful, The Epic City is likely to become for Calcutta what Suketu Mehta's classic Maximum City is for Mumbai' William Dalrymple, Observer

When Kushanava Choudhury arrived in New Jersey at the age of twelve, he had already migrated halfway around the world four times. After graduating from Princeton, he moved back to Calcutta, the city which his immigrant parents had abandoned. Taking a job at a newspaper, he found the streets of his childhood unchanged. Shouting hawkers still overran the footpaths, fish sellers squatted on bazaar floors; and politics still meant barricades and bus burnings. The Epic City is a soulful, compelling and often hilarious account of this metropolis of fifteen million people that is truly a world unto itself.

Join Joe Shute as he travels across Britain tracing the history of our seasons and discovering how they are changing. We talk about them. We plan our lives around them. The changing seasons are part of us all. But what happens when the weather changes beyond recognition? Joe Shute has spent years unpicking Britain’s love affair with the weather, poring over the centuries of folklore, customs and rituals our seasons have inspired. But in recent years Shute has noticed a curious thing: the British seasons are changing far faster and far more profoundly than we realise. Daffodils in December, frogspawn in November, swallows that no longer fly home, floods, wildfires and winters without snow. Nothing is behaving as it should, sending nature into an increasing state of flux. In Forecast, Shute travels all over Britain tracing the history of the seasons, and discovering the extent to which we are now growing disconnected from them. While documenting these warped rhythms caused by the changing weather, he records the parallels in his personal journey as he and his wife struggle to conceive a child. This is a book that races to keep up with the march of the seasons as they rapidly change course. It examines how the weather is reshaping the world around us, and asks what happens to centuries of culture, memory and identity when the very thing they subsist on is slipping away.

'A nostalgic experience, informative, humorous, charming, but pervaded by the bitter-sweet scent of regret' Daily Mail 'Fort has an eye for the quirky, the absurd, the pompous and a style that, like the road, is always on the move' Sunday Telegraph 'A lovely book...At last someone has celebrated the romance of the British road' Guardian The A303 is more than a road. It is a story. One of the essential routes of English motoring and the road of choice to the West Country for thousands of holidaymakers, the A303 recalls a time when the journey was an adventure and not simply about getting there. In this fully revised and updated edition, Tom Fort gives voice to the stories this road has to tell, from the bluestones of Stonehenge, Roman roads and drovers paths to turnpike tollhouses, mad vicars, wicked Earls and solstice seekers, the history, geography and culture of this road tells a story of an English way of life.

Gertrude Bell CBE is rightly known as 'The Queen of the Desert' and a new Hollywood film based on her life, featuring Nicole Kidman, James Franco, Damian Lewis and Robert Pattinson is due for release in 2015.A woman far ahead of her time, Gertrude gained a first from Oxford at a time when very few subjects were even open to women. She went on to take an active interest in politics before embarking on her one-woman travels across the Middle East. She chronicled her journeys through Iraq, Persia, Syria and beyond and her important diplomatic work, with characteristic wit and incisiveness. Despite the many achievements of her working life, sadly her personal life was marred by losing the great love of her life, Major Charles Doughty-Wylie, from which she never recovered. She died in 1926 of an apparent overdose of sleeping pills. With extracts from two of Bell's most compelling works of travel writing, Persian Pictures and Syria: The Desert and the Sown, this Hesperus edition is truly a unique collection of work.

First published in 2008. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book, first published in 1903, is an account of Lafcadio Hearn's insights and experiences of Japan. Hearn, known also by the Japanese name Koizumi Yakumo, was an international writer who was best known for his books about Japan and Japanese culture. This book will be of interest to students of history and Asian Studies.

This, the first title in a new series, Nature Retreats, which presents the most beautifully-designed holiday homes, with stunning mountain views. Travel journalist Sebastiaan Bedaux gathered 30 of the most stylish hideouts in the world in Mountain View. Despite the great variety of styles, different price tags and unique geography of the houses, they do have one thing in common: they are the stuff of dreams. The series will celebrate architecturally elegant hidden gems, surrounded by nature - deep in the woods, high up in the mountains, or built by the water - and all available for rent! Find some peace and quiet and let the splendour of the building and the unique landscape around it inspire you.

Riddoch on the Outer Hebrides is a thought-provoking commentary based on broadcaster Lesley Riddoch's cycle journey through a beautiful island chain facing seismic cultural and economic change. Her experience is described in a typically affectionate but hard-hitting style; with humour, anecdote and a growing sympathy for islanders tired of living at the margins but fearful of closer contact with mainland Scotland.

Amyr Klink, whose sailing exploits have made him a hero in Brazil, tells of his daring singlehanded circumnavigation below the Antarctic Convergence. Surfing the waves in his custom-built 50-foot "aluminum red truck," PARATII, Klink enjoys the quiet confidence that comes from proper planning, common-sense technology, and a lifelong fascination with the history of Southern Ocean sailing. A modern Moitessier, sailing before an Aerorig mast, Klink proves his seamanship handling tricky boat repairs while underway, navigating icebergs, negotiating gales and williwaws, and surfing gigantic waves.

William Alexander is not just a Francophile, he wants to be French. It's not enough to explore the country, to enjoy the food and revel in the ambiance, he wants to feel French from the inside. Among the things that stand in his way is the fact that he can't actually speak the language. Setting out to conquer the language he loves (but which, amusingly, does not seem to love him back), Alexander devotes himself to learning French, going beyond grammar lessons and memory techniques to delve into the history of the language, the science of linguistics, and the art of translation. Along the way, during his travels in France or following his passion at home, he discovers that not learning a language may be its own reward.

This is a classic real-life story of derring do on the high seas, complete with extreme risk, last-minute ingenuity and many near-misses.

Beginning in the 1960s, this book tells of the real life adventures of the author as a boy - a time of boarding schools, long holidays and an unbelievable (to today's parents) amount of freedom and danger. Encouraged by his parents (who lived abroad) to become more independent and self-sufficient, Peter decided to see how far he could get in his family's small open dinghy Calypso. Aged 16, he spent a winter restoring her, before pootling straight out into a force 7 gale and very nearly capsizing, after which he headed back to land to plan even more extreme adventures.

Calypso was a Wayfarer, a small (16ft) and very popular class of open dinghy; a boat designed for pottering around coastlines and estuaries during the day. But along with the occasional brave crewmate, Peter managed to sail her across the Channel, through the Bay of Biscay, down the French canals and into the Mediterranean, then up into the North Sea and the Baltic to Oslo, living aboard for three months at a time. These were some of the longest voyages that anyone had ever achieved in an open boat, where (as Peter says) you 'have to be like a tightrope walker, concentrating on balance day and night, fully aware of the consequence of relaxing your vigilance'. He survived huge waves, nine rudder breakages in heavy seas, dismasting, capsizes, and hallucinations caused by sleep deprivation. He also managed it on a tiny budget, working as a farm labourer, hitchhiking everywhere, and at times living on one meal of cereal a day, to save the maximum amount for his boat.

Charming, quite British in style, beautifully written and a lovely insight into a seemingly golden time, this is primarily a great read, but will be of huge practical use to anyone wanting to go that bit further in their dinghy. It also includes a lovely Foreword by world-famous yachtsman Brian Thompson.

Martyn Murray was finding modern life, with all its restrictions and controls, suffocating. Following years of soul-searching, his father's death triggered him into opening the old logbooks and charts to retrace the sailing trips they had once shared together. He determined to revisit those waters and bring home the freedom of the seas. Falling in love with an old ketch in Ireland, he bought and restored her enough to sail back to Scotland. Over the next two summers he cruised Scotland's Western Isles, with one goal: to reach St Kilda - the remotest part of the British Isles, 40 miles from the Outer Hebrides. During his cruising he considered the islanders and their sense of freedom - often restricted by absentee landlords and officialdom. He riled against bureaucracy and commercial enterprise restricting the yachtsman's ability to roam free. For parts of his journey he was joined by the beguiling Kyla; a rare, independent spirit who both excited and frustrated Martyn. But much of Martyn's voyaging was undertaken alone, encountering a variety of places, situations and characters along the way. He attempted his long-awaited sail out to St Kilda through the teeth of a storm, believing that achieving this feat would bring him the freedom and clarity that he craved. What he came up against was far more testing and turbulent than the tides and gales of the North Atlantic. As he sailed back to the mainland things fell into place: a sense of achievement in completing the arduous voyage alone, but - most of all - an understanding of who he is, clarity on his relationship with Kyla and a real sense of his own freedom.

"Everything creaks and bends in heavy seas - what will not bend will simply snap. So many times I wondered how much load we could carry in a powerful storm without breaking apart. If we flooded any faster I would drown in seconds." Patrick Dixon spent years working as a doctor at University College Hospital, while his wife Sheila was a magistrate - high-pressure careers that demanded long hours away from their home, family and passion for sailing. It is a frustrating story many occasional sailors can relate to, but unlike most, Patrick and Sheila realised early enough that they could only bend so far before something snapped, they could only take on so much before they drowned. This is their story of how they made changes (some more challenging than others) that they knows other sailors could make too, regardless of where they are at the moment - how they changed their priorities but managed to sustain a new career that fitted in around life rather than the other way round. It is also the story of their personal journey, both physically (across the Atlantic and to little-visited corners of the Mediterranean) and metaphorically - how a doctor who treated cancer patients coped with a partner facing the same battle. Neither of them wanted to let that flood things either. Through their personal story, with plenty of mishaps that led to insights (both about sailing and life in general), and encounters that turned into opportunities, Patrick and Sheila explore the importance of prioritising the right things in life, and the simple benefits of travel. The book is packed with inspiring but practical advice for all those who have salt in the blood.

Shortlisted for the SAUK Fage & Oliver Prize 2020 'Honorable Mention' for the ALA First Book Award - Scholarship 2021 A path-breaking contribution to the critical literature on African travel writing. Throughout the twentieth century, Nigerians have been writing about their travels within Nigeria using a variety of media and forms, from serialised newspaper travelogues to personal diaries, autobiographies and online narratives.These works offer important insights into how Nigerians have represented Nigeria to itself and to the world. This is the first book to examine the production of Nigerian travel narratives about Nigeria in the century from colonisation to independence. Rebecca Jones argues that we can read these texts both as the products of a local Nigerian print culture, and through their articulations with global travel writing traditions. Focusing on travel writing published from 1914 to 2014 in the Yoruba-speaking region of southwestern Nigeria, home to a well-established and prolific writing and print culture in both Yoruba and English, this cultural history of Nigerian travel comprisesclose readings of these works, and argues that the production of travel writing in the region can be read not simply as a foreign import, but as a cluster of genres with a cohesive local history. Writers discussed include Samuel Ajayi Crowther, I.B. Thomas, E.A. Akintan, Isaac Delano, D.O. Fagunwa, Amos Tutuola, Ben Okri, Babatunde Shadeko, Damilola Ajenifuja, Chibuzor Mirian Azubuike, Pelu Awofeso, Lape Soetan, Teju Cole, Adewale Maja-Pearce, Noo Saro-Wiwa, and the Invisible Borders collective. Nigeria: Premium Times Books