In Riviereland lewer Karel Schoeman verslag van twee reise deur Nederland. In die eerste, korter deel skryf hy oor 'n besoek aan die stede Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Delft, Haarlem en Leiden as deel van uitgebreide navorsing oor die VOC-tydperk, maar besoek ook kleiner plekkies soos Meppel en Hattem wat bande met sy eie grootouers het. Die tweede deel handel oor 'n langer verblyf in die provinsie Gelderland, die mees landelike van die Nederlandse provinsies. Die reis het weer eens ten doel om navorsing te doen oor figure soos Jan van Riebeeck, Simon van der Stel en baron Van Reede van Oudtshoorn, asook die gewone werkslui wat in diens van die VOC was, soos die vryburger Jan van Herwerden en sy vrou Jannetje Boddijs. Terselfdertyd word die skrywer voortdurend getref deur die skoonheid van die landskap in gebiede soos die Hoge Veluwe en die groot riviere die Ryn, die Maas en die IJssel wat deur die vlak land vloei. Die boeiende verslag van 'n verblyf in die buiteland word dus telkens verryk deur herinnerings aan en verbintenisse met die vroeë koloniale geskiedenis van Suid-Afrika en die skrywer se eie familiegeskiedenis.

"Each of the twelve authors deftly plumb the depths of documentary sources, literary analyses, personal observations, biographical and historical accounts to improve vastly on the seemingly two-dimensional nature of the pirate"
--"The Great Circle: Journal of the Australian Association for Maritime History"

"With this collection, those swashbuckling heroes, or villains, ranging the wide seas in search of pillage and plunder, become individuals and groups situated firmly within their own geographic, political, economic, and historical contexts."
--"Journal of Folklore Research"

The romantic fiction of pirates as swashbuckling marauders terrorizing the high seas has long eclipsed historical fact. Bandits at Sea offers a long-overdue corrective to the mythology and the mystique which has plagued the study of pirates and served to deny them their rightful legitimacy as subjects of investigation.

With essays by the foremost scholars on these countercultural "social bandits"as Lingua Franca recently dubbed themthis collection examines various aspects of the phenomenon in the three main areas where it occurred: the Caribbean/Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and East Asia. We come to understand who pirates were, as well as the socio-economic contexts under which they developed and flourished.

Comparisons between various types of piracy illustrate differences in practice and purpose between pirates of different areas; social histories, including examinations of women pirates and their historical significance and circumstances, offer similar insight into the personal lives of pirates from diverse regions. Far from serving as dens of thieves, pirate ships were often highlyregulated microcosms of democracy. The crews of pirate vessels knew that majority rule, racial equality and equitable division of spoils were crucial for their survival, marking them as significantly more liberal than national governments.

Scholars, students and a general audience ever intrigued by talesand now truthsof piracy on the high seas will welcome Bandits at Sea.

"Thirteenth Beach" is an absorbing account of travel and adventure. It sweeps you into the action, beauty, and drama that awaits any adventurer seeking to explore the world's oceans and waterways. It's written with a sharp eye for detail, an ironic sense of humor, and above all, a personal style that puts the reader in exotic locations and in the water shoulder to shoulder with the author. This is an ideal traveler's fireside companion.

""Fantastic read!!! I read it twice."" Steve Sutton, Diver, adventurer. California

""Fascinating read ... a book for all of us looking for the ultimate underwater adventure."" www.divesiteonline.com

""A book for divers ... written by a diver."" www.adirondackdivers.com

""A strong sense of adventure!"" Ron & Viv Moon, "Kakirra Adventure Publications, " Australia

"We left our Maine and our United States at home and we journeyed amongst other peoples with courtesy to them and credit to ourselves." That is John Gould's definition of good travelers; and he and his wife are charming examples of this as they tour through Germany, Denmark, Austria, Italy, France, England, and Scotland. You'll discover what a delight it is to travel Gould family style, for that is Maine style with the extra sparkle of Gould's wry Down East humor. It's a friendly book, but Gould lets no country, group, individual, or menu get away with pomposity or an unearned reputation. There is much to discover, both good and bad as the Goulds search for the quality of European life and bring readers into the presence of ordinary, and fascinating, Europeans.

- amp gt ., , quot i amp gt A OUR Jerusalem an American Family in the Holy City, 1881-1949 Bertha Spafford Vester Introduction by LOWELL THOMAS Doubleday Company, Inc. GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 1950 APPRECIATION LIFE in the American Colony of Jerusalem during the last decade was tranquil although surrounded by political turmoil-Our consuls were friendly. Religious leaders understood us better. Perhaps we had become less of an enigma, and perhaps Jerusalem had changed. Mod ern Jerusalem accepted us at our value. The old stories cropped up now and then, but were turned aside with oh-that-used-to-be looks, which hurt worse than accusations when one thought of the robust Christianity of the Colony s founders which allowed quot no room for self pity, as Mother expressed it, at the most crucial moment of her life. It was during this time that I began work on the record of my par ents experiences in Jerusalem and elsewhere which would serve as a record for my children and grandchildren. I have taken five years writing it, part of which was done while we were under fire in the recent war against the partition of Palestine. Preceding this I had worked for fifteen years gathering material incorporated in its writ ing, and for such contributed data, letters and memoirs, newspaper accounts and testimonials, legal, ecclesiastical and historic, I am in debted to more friends in the United States, the Holy Land, and England than I have space to acknowledge, but whose kindness and interest have contributed greatly to this account of our lives in Amer ica and Jerusalem, I should like to express my public appreciation to Mr, Lowell Thomas, author, lecturer, and radio commentator, whose friendship over manyyears has meant much to the American Colony in Jerusalem and to me, and who was the first to suggest that I turn into a book my private family record by which others might see the Holy City as it has seemed to us for nearly seventy years. To Dr. Millar Burrows, Winkley Professor of Biblical Theology at the Divinity School of Yale University and late Director of the Ameri can School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, I am deeply grateful for whole-hearted encouragement and advice My gratitude is also extended to the Rev, Charles T. Bridgeman, at present connected with Trinity Church, New York, formerly Canon of St. George s Cathedral in Jerusalem, who has given unstintedly of his twenty years experience in Palestine, particularly in church mat ters. I also wish to thank Miss Evelyn Wells for her help. BERTHA SPAFFORD VESTER vii INTRODUCTION By Lowell Thomas FOR years my wanderings took me to many parts of the world. In the course of these travels I met a fair proportion of the unusual personalities of our time statesmen, explorers, soldiers, scientists, missionaries, writers, mining men, merchants, and artists. When a traveler thinks of mountain ranges, certain peaks stand out in his mind Kinchinjunga in the Himalayas Aconcagua in the Andes Saint Elias and McKinley in Alaska Demavend in Persia Chomolari in Tibet Rainier in the Puget Sound country Mount Washington in New England, and a dozen more in various lands-Looking back on the people I have met, a few are like the mountains I have mentioned. One of these is the author of this book. Of all the remarkable personalities I have known, Berfha Vester is one of the few that I have envied. To me Jerusalem is the most dramatic of the citiesof this earth, more so even than Athens, Rome or Paris. And Berfha Vester is lie only outstanding person who has lived there, both as an observer and a participant in events, under the Turkish sultans, through World War I, the period of the Mandate, a second world war, and finally the period of the return of the Children of Israel. What a panorama Since the days when Dr. John Finley, famous editor of the New York Times, and I, first met her in Jerusalem, I have been urging her to write the story of her life...

In the summer of 2012, the author returned to his native Cuba to retrieve his birth certificate after an absence of 50 years, 24 of which he lived in the United States. This memoir of his journey of personal and political discovery illuminates how the two countries-90 miles apart yet opposites on the political spectrum-have both lost their way in the misguided pursuit of their divergent ideologies. The author presents a candid view of the revolution and U.S.-Cuban relations through conversations with everyday Havanans.

Originally published in early 1900's. A fascinating illustrated record of the author's various cruises taken from the log books of the yachts in use at that time. This book also includes a section entitled "More Cruises" by Maude Speed. Many of the earliest sailing books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Home Farm Books are republishing many of these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Over the summer of 2011, Dervla Murphy spent a month in the Gaza Strip. She met liberals and Islamists, Hamas and Fatah supporters, rich and poor. Used to western reporters dashing in and out of the Strip in times of crisis, the people she met were touched by her genuine, unflinching interest and spoke openly to her about life in their open-air prison. What she finds are a people who, far from the story we are so often fed, overwhelmingly long for peace and an end to the violence that has so grossly distorted their lives. The impression we take away from the book is of a people whose real, complex, nuanced voice has rarely been heard before. A MONTH BY THE SEA gives unique insight into the way in which isolation has shaped this society: how it radicalises young men and plays into the hands of dominating patriarchs, yet also how it hardens determination not to give in and turns family into a towering source of support. Underlying the book is Dervla's determination to try to understand how Arab Palestinians and Israeli Jews might forge a solution and ultimately live in peace. Dervla looks long and hard at the hypocrisies of Western and Israeli attitudes to peace', and at Palestinian attitudes to terrorism. While this shattered people long for a respite from the bombings that have ripped a hole, both literally and psychologically, in their world, it seems that politicians have an agenda that pays little attention to their plight.

Following A Month by the Sea, her acclaimed exploration of life in Gaza, Dervla Murphy describes with passionate honesty the experience of living with and among Jewish Israelis and Palestinians in both Israel and Palestine. In cramped Haifa high-rises, in homes in the settlements and in a refugee camp on the West Bank, she talks with whomever she meets, trying to understand them and their attitudes with her customary curiosity, her acute ear and mind, her empathy, her openness to the experience and her moral seriousness. Behind the book lies a desire to communicate the reality of life on the ground, and to puzzle out for herself what might be done to alleviate the suffering of all who wish to share this land and to make peace in the region a possibility. Meeting the wise, the foolish and the frankly deluded, she gradually knits together a picture of the patchwork that constitutes both sides of the divide - Hamas and Fatah, rural and urban, refugee, indigenous inhabitant, Russian, Black Hebrew and Kabbalist to name but a fraction. She finds compassion and empathy in both communities, but is also appalled by instances of its lack on both sides - a Palestinan woman who will not concede the suffering of Jewish civilian victims of a suicide bomber, and the Jewish inhabitants of Hebron who make the lives of their Muslim neighbours a living hell. Clinging to hope, Dervla comes to believe that despite its difficulties the only viable future lies in a single democratic state of Israel/Palestine, based on one person, one vote - a One-State Solution.

In February 2025, Michael Palin travelled to Venezuela to get a sense of what life is like in one of South America's most culturally rich, vibrant but also troubled nations.

In the journal he kept during his trip he gives a vivid account of the towns and cities he visited, the landscapes he travelled through, and the people he met.

Illustrated throughout with colour photographs taken on the trip, and permeated with his warmth and humour, this is a vivid and varied portrait of a complex country from the best-selling author and beloved travel writer.

_______________ 'A passionate love letter to language and to Italy ... a bold and quirkily engaging self-portrait' - Lee Langley, Spectator 'A writer of uncommon elegance and poise' - New York Times 'A fascinating account of her linguistic exile' - Erica Wagner, Harper's Bazaar _______________ In Other Words is a revelation. It is at heart a love story of a long and sometimes difficult courtship, and a passion that verges on obsession: that of a writer for another language. For Jhumpa Lahiri, that love was for Italian, which first captivated and capsized her during a trip to Florence after college. Although Lahiri studied Italian for many years afterwards, true mastery had always eluded her. Seeking full immersion, she decided to move to Rome with her family, for 'a trial by fire, a sort of baptism' into a new language and world. There, she began to read and to write - initially in her journal - solely in Italian. In Other Words, an autobiographical work written in Italian, investigates the process of learning to express oneself in another language, and describes the journey of a writer seeking a new voice. Presented in a dual-language format, this is a wholly original book about exile, linguistic and otherwise, written with an intensity and clarity not seen since Vladimir Nabokov: a startling act of self-reflection and a provocative exploration of belonging and reinvention.

Award-winning travel writer Lawrence Millman tromps through western Ireland's rugged countryside to record the oral history of its people before their hard-earned traditions are permanently stifled by industrialization and development. In doing so he produces a "lovely nugget of good writing" (New York Times) that relays the stories of traditional laborers-tinkers cartwrights, rat-charmers, coopers, thatchers, farriers, gleemen, pig-gelders-with candor and depth.

The written travelogue of Ella Sykes' historic first journey across central Asia, this book has been considered a classic of women's studies as well as a historic travel account. Detailing the impressions of Sykes while traveling with her diplomat brother through central Asia in the nineteenth century, this illustrated volume has a wide appeal to those interested in Iran as it used to be.