In January 2002 Rory Stewart walked across Afghanistan-surviving by his wits, his knowledge of Persian dialects and Muslim customs, and the kindness of strangers. By day he passed through mountains covered in nine feet of snow, hamlets burned and emptied by the Taliban, and communities thriving amid the remains of medieval civilizations. By night he slept on villagers' floors, shared their meals, and listened to their stories of the recent and ancient past. Along the way Stewart met heroes and rogues, tribal elders and teenage soldiers, Taliban commanders and foreign-aid workers. He was also adopted by an unexpected companion-a retired fighting mastiff he named Babur in honor of Afghanistan's first Mughal emperor, in whose footsteps the pair was following.
Through these encounters-by turns touching, con-founding, surprising, and funny-Stewart makes tangible the forces of tradition, ideology, and allegiance that shape life in the map's countless places in between.

An important work for the nineteenth century history of East Africa. It contains a new introduction with a biographical sketch of Krapf.

THE TIMES TOP 10 BESTSELLER SHORTLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE Drowned. Buried by sand. Decimated by plague. Plunged off a cliff. This is the forgotten history of Britain's lost cities, ghost towns and vanished villages: our shadowlands. 'A beautiful book, truly original . . . It is a marvellous achievement.' IAN MORTIMER, author of The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England 'Well researched, beautifully written and packed with interesting detail.' CLAIRE TOMALIN 'An exquisitely written, moving and elegiac exploration.' SUZANNAH LIPSCOMB 'Consistently interesting . . . Green's passion and historical vision bursts from the page, summoning up the past in surround sound and sensual prose.' CAL FLYN, THE TIMES (author of Islands of Abandonment) Historian Matthew Green travels across Britain to tell the forgotten history of our lost cities, ghost towns and vanished villages. Revealing the extraordinary stories of how these places met their fate - and exploring how they have left their mark on our landscape and our imagination - Shadowlands is a deeply evocative and dazzlingly original account of Britain's past. 'An eloquent tour of lost communities.' PD SMITH, GUARDIAN 'A haunting, lyrical tour around the lost places of Britain.' CHARLOTTE HIGGINS, author of Under Another Sky 'A miraculous work of resurrection, stinging in a perpetual present'. IAIN SINCLAIR, author of The Gold Machine 'Beautifully written.' SUNDAY TIMES 'Startling.' FINANCIAL TIMES 'Splendid.' THE HERALD 'Compelling.' HISTORY TODAY 'Excellent.' THE SPECTATOR 'Fascinating.' DAILY MAIL 'Accomplished.' CAUGHT BY THE RIVER 'Outstanding.' MIRROR

For those who believe that the best way to understand someone is to walk a mile in his or her shoes, Florida's rich history features those whose footwear ranged from Native American moccasins to astronauts' boots. And there are plenty of opportunities to "actually "walk in those shoes. You can join in all sorts of historical reenactments--in full costume if you like. You have the unique opportunity to relive a part of Florida's long and fascinating past.

You can also travel forward into the future. The Florida peninsula has been like a springboard from which human beings can rocket into space or dive beneath the surfaces of its nearly surrounding waters.

This unique guidebook offers you time travel. The day has arrived for this new kind of travelogue, which reveals not only places to visit but also time periods to experience. This is a book for today's explorers of place and space, past and future. This is "The Time Traveler's Guide to Florida."

A sample of the times you can visit:
12,000 B.C.: Stone Age and Primitive Arts Festival "Ochlockonee "
1565: The Menendez Landing Event "St. Augustine"
1586: Drake's Raid "St. Augustine"
1650-1725: The Pirates of Fort Taylor "Key West"
1690s: Military Muster at Castillo San Luis "Tallahassee"
Late 1700s: The Living Village of Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki "Big Cypress Seminole Reservation"
1835: The Dade Battle "Bushnell"
1864: The Battle of Olustee "Baker County"
1870: A Cane Boil at Morningside Farm "Gainesville"
1898: A Spanish-American War Event "Fernandina Beach"
1945: VE Day in Florida "The Villages"
2025: The Zero-G Flights "Cape Kennedy "
est. 2050: Jules Undersea Lodge "Key Largo"

New Directions is delighted to announce beautiful new editions of these three classic Sebald novels, including his two greatest works, The Emigrants and The Rings of Saturn. All three novels are distinguished by their translations, every line of which Sebald himself made pitch-perfect, slaving to carry into English all his essential elements: the shadows, the lambent fallings-back, nineteenth-century Germanic undertones, tragic elegiac notes, and his unique, quiet wit.

Shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year Non-Fiction Award 2020 'Chappell is a gifted storyteller' - Observer In 2015 Emily Chappell embarked on a formidable new bike race: The Transcontinental. 4,000km across Europe, unassisted, in the shortest time possible. On her first attempt she made it only halfway, waking up suddenly on her back in a field, floored by the physical and mental exertion. A year later she entered the race again - and won. Where There's a Will takes us into Emily Chappell's race, grinding up mountain passes and charging down the other side; snatching twenty minutes' sleep on the outskirts of a village before jumping back on the bike to surge ahead for another day; feeding in bursts and navigating on the go. We experience the crippling self-doubt of the ultra distance racer, the confusing intensity of winning and the desperation of losing a dear friend who understood all of this.

An extraordinary photographic exploration of North Korea, from a Westerner who lived in Pyongyang and explored the country beyond for nearly two years. What happens when you travel to a place where even basic truths are ambiguous? Where sometimes you can't trust your own eyes or feelings? Where the divide between real and imagined is never clear? For two years, Lindsey Miller lived in North Korea, long regarded as one of the most closed societies on earth. As one of Pyongyang's small community of resident foreigners, Lindsey was granted remarkable freedoms to experience the country without government minders. She had a front row seat as North Korea shot into the headlines during an unprecedented period of military tension with the US and the subsequent historic Singapore Summit. However, it was the connection with individuals and their families, and the day-to-day reality of control and repression, that delivered the real revelations of North Korean life, and which left Lindsey utterly changed from the woman who had nervously disembarked from her plane onto an empty runway just two years before. This is her extraordinary photographic account, a testament to the hidden humanity of North Korea.

History of a Six Weeks' Tour (1817) is a travelogue by Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Composed of journal entries, letters, and a poem, History of a Six Weeks' Tour was published anonymously with a preface by Percy. Detailing their stay in Switzerland during the legendary "year without a summer," the travelogue was Mary's first published work and remains an invaluable text for the study of English Romanticism. When Percy Bysshe Shelley met Mary Godwin, he had initially planned to acquaint himself with her father, a famous philosopher. Soon, however, the pair fell in love and eloped with Claire Clairmont, Mary's stepsister. They journeyed through France, Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands before returning home with little money and without the support of their families. In 1816, following the death of their first child, Percy and Mary travelled with Claire to Geneva, Switzerland, where the infamous Lord Byron had rented a villa along the shores of Lake Geneva. Due to a volcanic eruption in Indonesia, temperatures in Europe and throughout the world plummeted, creating the conditions for the "year without a summer." Forced to remain indoors for much of their stay, the group soon grew tired of telling one another folk tales and ghost stories to pass the time. On a whim, Byron suggested they all write their own works of fiction, igniting the spark for some of the defining texts of the Romantic era. Having never published her own writing before, Mary unwittingly began mapping out her masterpiece. Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus appeared in print two years later, changing the course of English literature forever. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley's History of a Six Weeks' Tour is a classic of English literature reimagined for modern readers.

We meet Freddy, Phil and Don - the hilarious, yet deep thinking, tales of three retired men determined to keep hiking to the bitter end in their beloved Peak District - but each for very different reasons...Phil - a former air-traffic controller and the group's self-appointed leader - is on a mission not to grow old. He believes his combination of obsessive physical exercise and the latest health supplements will hold back time. Freddy - a shambolic slacker who prefers to stroll and smell the flowers. Freddy's eternal mission is to find the meaning of life. Until he does, he takes consolation in outmanoeurvring the vulgar, aspirational world around him Thankfully they have Don to calm the waters. All Don asks for in return is some peace, tranquility and perhaps a decent pint when they reach their destination.

1970 was a time when there were no GPS’s, no electronic calculators or notebook computers, no communication via VHF or SSB radios and satellite phones, no accurate quartz watches, no access to weather forecasts, no EPIRB (emergency position indicating radio beacons), no lightweight small-boat refrigeration, no water makers, no disposable napkins (except cotton wool wadding), no yellow margarine and only limited dehydrated foods. At that time, a young Johannesburg couple fulfil a dream adventure in a 25-foot yacht.

This is a story of survival at sea, a husband's resourcefulness in the face of huge difficulties, running out of food and water and an amazing reunion with the author's Danish roots. It reaches a climax when they have a baby and decide to return to South Africa when he was just four months old. The wooden sloop’s voyage of 23,000 nautical sea miles concluded with the return to South African shores after a 53 day passage in the Southern Ocean.

The story is a faithful rendition of the author’s log and letters which allow the reader to step back into the past and relive the thoughts, feelings, fears and faith of a young wife, mother and sailor.

"What's the strangest thing you've ever seen or experienced?" Gina and Scott Gaille have traveled to more than 100 countries, including many off-the-beaten-path places in Africa, South America, and Asia. Wherever they go, they ask this question. Everyone has a story, and some are truly extraordinary. Strange Tales of World Travel recounts 50 of these Bizarre, Mysterious, Horrible, Hilarious encounters, including: Daring Diplomat, who ate the flesh of the venomous cobra bird in the Sahara Desert Pearl Trader, who survived a fever through a harrowing "human" honey treatment in Oman Agent Ghost, who was shot and left to die in a garbage dump in Africa Death-Defying Instagrammer, who stepped on the tail of the world's sixth most venomous snake in Australia to take a better photo Human Pet, who became a prince's prisoner in Qatar Imperial CEO, who made a minion fly twelve hours to Paris from Abu Dhabi to buy clean underwear Gorilla Doll, who broke the rules of visiting Rwandan gorillas and got dragged up the side of a volcano Strange Tales of World Travel presents unforgettable stories that celebrate the unique character of countries around the globe-and the distinctive characters that make travel endlessly intriguing and exhilarating.

First published in 2013. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Over the course of twenty years of delivering sailboats to far-flung quaysides, John Kretschmer has had innumerable adventures, both humorous and terrifying. in Flirting with Mermaids, he recounts the most memorable of them. He crosses the Western Caribbean with a crew of eccentric Swedes researching ancient Mayan mariners, lands in Aden at the outbreak of civil war, and endures a North Atlantic crossing during which he disocvers the existence of Force 13 winds. Approaching Japan at the end of a particularly trying delivery, he finds himself sailing in "a high impact debris zone," but his resolve is unshaken. "If a piece of rocketship jetsam fell out of the sky and sank [me] after encounters with Hurricane Floyd, General Noriega,a tsunami, an erupting volcano, and Typhoon Roy, then it was meant to be."

Among the Believers is V. S. Naipaul's classic account of his journeys through Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia, and Indonesia; 'the believers' are the Muslims he met on those journeys, young men and women battling to regain the original purity of their faith in the hope of restoring order to a chaotic world. It is a uniquely valuable insight into modern Islam and the comforting simplifications of religious fanaticism. 'This book investigates the Islamic revolution and tries to understand the fundamentalist zeal that has gripped the young in Iran and other Muslim countries . . . He is a modern master.' - Sunday Times 'His level of perception is of the highest, and his prose has become the perfect instrument for realizing those perceptions on the page. His travel writing is perhaps the most important body of work of its kind in the second half of the century.' - Martin Amis, author of Time's Arrow.

A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE YEAR LONGLISTED FOR THE ANGLO-HELLENIC LEAGUE RUNCIMAN AWARD 2022 'Peter Fiennes's road trip around Greece [is] engagingly described' Mary Beard, TLS 'Fiennes is a brilliant and generous guide through Greece' Observer 'A wonderful... really profound meditation on what it means to hope... a gorgeous excursion into Greece and across the centuries on an environmental quest' BBC Radio 4 Open Book Book of the Year choice by Anita Roy What do the Greek myths mean to us today? It's now a golden age for these tales - they crop up in novels, films and popular culture. But what's the modern relevance of Theseus, Hera and Pandora? Were these stories ever meant for children? And what's to be seen now at the places where heroes fought and gods once quarrelled? Peter Fiennes travels to the sites of some of the most famous Greek myths, on the trail of hope, beauty and a new way of seeing what we have done to our world. Fiennes walks through landscapes - stunning and spoiled - on the trail of dancing activists and Arcadian shepherds, finds the 'most beautiful beach in Greece', consults the Oracle, and loses himself in the cities, remote villages and ruins of this storied land.

Julian Sayarer grew up riding a bicycle. Working as a bike courier in London, he learned the world record for a circumnavigation by bike had been broken, and that cycling into the sunset had been bought by banks and big business. Determined to do things differently, Julian set out to take back the record for the people. Life Cycles is his story of that record, riding 110 miles every 24 hours for 6 months on only GBP8.84 a day - a route through jungles, snow and 20 different countries. He found himself stranded without money in the deserts of Kazakhstan, held up by insurrections in northwest China, and sleeping under motorway bridges in America's Deep South. Taken by life on the road and a spirit of adventure, he loved every minute of it. A tale of excitement and world politics by bicycle, travelling at 12mph, Julian found that the Tartars of Central Asia aren't so different to the trailer families of Louisiana. This book is a reminder that the world is out there - and it's waiting for us.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

After one too many late night discussions, football journalist Paul Watson and his mate Matthew Conrad decide to find the world's worst national team, become naturalised citizens of that country and play for them - achieving their joint boyhood dream of playing international football and winning a 'cap'. They are thrilled when Wikipedia leads them to Pohnpei, a tiny, remote island in the Pacific whose long-defunct football team is described as 'the weakest in the world'. They contact Pohnpei's Football Association and discover what it needs most urgently is leadership. So Paul and Matt travel thousands of miles, leaving behind jobs, families and girlfriends to train a rag-tag bunch of novice footballers who barely understand the rules of the game. Up Pohnpei tells the story of their quest to coach the team and eventually, organise an international fixture - Pohnpei's first since a 16-1 defeat many years ago. With no funding, a population whose obesity rate is 90 percent and toad-infested facilities in one of the world's wettest climates, their journey is beset by obstacles from the outset. Part travelogue, part quest, Up Pohnpei shows how the passion and determination of two young men can change the face of football - and the lives of total strangers - on the other side of the world.

'I have never before in my life kept a diary of my thoughts, and here at the start of my ninth decade, having for the moment nothing much else to write, I am having a go at it. Good luck to me.'

So begins this extraordinary book, a collection of diary pieces that Jan Morris wrote for the Financial Times over the course of 2017.

A former soldier and journalist, and one of the great chroniclers of the world for over half a century, she writes here in her characteristically intimate voice - funny, perceptive, wise, touching, wicked, scabrous, and above all, kind - about her thoughts on the world, and her own place in it as she turns ninety. From cats to cars, travel to home, music to writing, it's a cornucopia of delights from a unique literary figure.

In the feverish, money-making age of railroad barons, political machines, and gold rushes, corruption was the rule, not the exception. Yet the Republican mogul 'Big Alex' McKenzie's audacity was remarkable. Charismatic and shameless, he arrived in the recently purchased Alaskan territory with a federal district judge in his pocket, intent on claiming stewardship over any ambiguously claimed gold mines and promptly draining them of all of their ore. Working-class miners who had rushed to the frozen tundra to strike gold were appalled at his open greed and disregard for maintaining even the pretense of good faith. A Most Wicked Conspiracy tells the story of McKenzie's misdeeds, the resistance of the wronged miners, and the way the scandal captured the national spotlight -- with the press eager to show how America's political and economic life was in the grip of domineering, self-dealing, seemingly-untouchable party bosses in cahoots with robber barons, Senators and even Presidents. These events resonate well into the 21st century. At the core is an eternal question: should the law be a tool of the rich and the powerful for the accomplishment of their nefarious schemes, or an impartial force for justice from which no person can escape?

In Climbing Days, Dan Richards is on the trail of his great-great-aunt, Dorothy Pilley, a prominent and pioneering mountaineer of the early twentieth century. For years, Dorothy and her husband, I. A. Richards, remained a mystery to Dan, but the chance discovery of her 1935 memoir leads him on a journey. Perhaps, in the mountains, he can meet them halfway? Climbing Days is a beautiful portrait of a trailblazing woman, previously lost to history, but also a book about that eternal question: why do people climb mountains?

Published in the year 2005, Quest for Sheba is a valuable contribution to the field of Middle Eastern Studies.