A rugged land between the Black and Caspian seas, the Caucasus is a battle ground for a fascinating and formidable clash of cultures: Russia on one side, the predominantly Muslim mountains on the other. In "Caucasus," award-winning author Nicholas Griffin recounts his journey to this war torn region to explore the roots of today's conflict, centering his travelogue on Imam Shamil, the great nineteenth century Muslim warrior who commanded a quarter-century resistance against invading Russian forces.
Delving deep into the Caucasus, Griffin transcends the headlines trumpeting Chechen insurgency to give the land and its conflicts dimension: evoking the weather, terrain, and geography alongside national traditions, religious affiliations, and personal legends as barriers to peaceful co-existence. In focusing his tale on Shamil while retracing his steps, Griffin compellingly demonstrates the way history repeats itself.

First published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This is the story of Stevenson's Pacific travels on the Casco and the Equator. It is a beautifully observed account of island peoples and their life; it is also the story of the beginning of his love affair with the Pacific, and of his growing commitment to the island cause. "In the South Seas" has been described as "the most solid of Stevenson's general writings;" it is certainly his least known book as well as a unique gem of Pacific literature, and richly deserves to be rediscovered.

After their fantastic trip round the world in 2004, fellow actors and bike fanatics Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman couldn't shake the travel bug. And after an inspirational UNICEF visit to Africa, they knew they had to go back and experience this extraordinary continent in more depth. And so they set off on their 15,000-mile journey with two new BMWs loaded up for the trip. Joining up with producer/directors Russ Malkin and David Alexanian and the Long Way Round team, their route took them from John O'Groats at the northernmost tip of Scotland to Cape Agulhas on the southernmost tip of South Africa. Riding through spectacular scenery, often in extreme temperatures, Ewan and Charley faced their hardest challenges yet. With their trademark humour and honesty they tell their story - the drama, the dangers and the sheer exhilaration of riding together again, through a continent filled with magic and wonder.

First published in 1930. The wandering Jew is a very real character in the great drama of history. He has travelled as nomad and settler, as fugitive and conqueror, as exile and colonist and as merchant and scholar. Of necessity bilingual and therefore the master of many languages, the Jew was the ideal commercial traveller and interpreter.
Based on the volume of 24 Hebrew texts of Jewish travellers by J D Eisenstein, this volume begins with the ninth century. After the sixteenth century geographical discoveries had made the whole world familiar to most people. Consequently, the wandering Jew becomes less the diplomatist or scientist but still remains a link between the scattered members of the Diaspora. The volume ends in the middle of the eighteenth century and taken as a whole provides a survey of Jewish travel during the Middle Ages. For this translation, some of the texts have been abridged, whilst retaining many of the original notes.

First published in 1927. John Macdonald (1741-96) was born, and died, a Scottish Highlander. First published at the time of the French Revolution, these memoirs of his days in service provide a rich panorama of life in the company of blind fiddlers, maid-servants, the Scottish aristocracy, soldiers, historians, Oriental Princes, servants of the East India Company and men of great wealth, including James Coutts the banker. In 1768 - as the result of an errand - it fell to Macdonald to witness the death of Laurence Sterne.
'Simply packed with interest' Sunday Times
'..a model of genuine writing' Evening Standard
'Deserves a high place among autobiographies.' Nation

First published in 1929.
'Fire and shipwreck, fights ashore and afloat, the pitting of ceaseless patience and resource against fate, these things make one understand why the book, famous in its original tongue, has but to be savoured in translation to gain an equal popularity.' Manchester Guardian
Bontekoe's East Indian Voyage was one of the most popular books in which the Dutch seventeenth century public delighted and it continued to be reprinted throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
As well as providing an illuminating insight into the machinations of the Merchants and Directors of the East India Company and the often troubled waters of international trade and diplomacy, the account is a very personal one: of a human being battling against elemental forces, at tremendous odds, tenaciously holding on to life and coming through in the end.

First published in 1930. This volume contains letters and narratives of some of the Elizabethans who went to India. Here the beginnings of the British Indian Empire can be seen, arising out of the trading operations of the East India Company.

First published in 1926. Don Juan was a Persian Moslem who became a Spanish Roman Catholic. His description of Persia and his account of the wars waged by the Persians during the sixteenth century considerably add to modern day knowledge of the history of the period. The book describes the Safavi rule as first established, and the system of government set up in the prime of Shah 'Abbas, as well as being an account of the long journey from Isfahan to Valladolid.
Guy Le Strange's comprehensive introduction places the book in its historical context, as well as providing important information on how the book was written. Many of the inaccuracies of the original text are corrected in translation with references and notes added to the index to guide the reader.

First published in 1931.
Mainly focussing on cultural and geographical aspects, Travels of an Alchemist are unique in their importance as a source for early Mongol history, enabling us as they do to fix with certainty the otherwise obscure and much disputed dates of Chingiz Khan's movements during his Western campaign. The author, a Taoist doctor, left some of the most faithful and vivid pictures ever drawn of nature and society between the Aral and the Yellow Sea.
Waley's introduction provides excellent background information with which to place the Travels in their appropriate historical, social and religious setting.

When first published in 1928, Herbert's work enjoyed immediate success. The narrative is of considerable importance from an historical point of view, as it gives the only detailed account of the first English embassy to Persia. It also paints a graphic picture of the Perisa and the Persians in the early part of the seventeenth century, with vivid and extensive descriptions of the towns of Abbas, Lar, Shiraz, Persepolis, Isfahan, Ashraf, Tehran, Qazvin, Qum and Kashan.
This edition is based on the revised edition of 1677, but has in turn been edited so that the version reprinted here includes only what the author actually saw or gleaned at first hand. The notes include identification of places and a glossary of the strange or obsolete terms.

First published in 1927. 'This diary is history' The Observer
This is the first complete published edition of Teonge's Diary. The edition of 1825, besides omitting several passages, contained many faulty transcriptions which have now been corrected for this edition. An intensely human document, enlivened with sketches of the people he met and places he visited, Teonge's Diary is one of the finest accounts of life on board ship in the seventeenth century. When not at sea, Henry Teonge's life was as a parson and this edition of his Diary includes a full inventory for his Parish, providing an excellent source of historical and social information on rural life in the late 1600s.

On 26th April 2014 Huw kayaked away from Anzac Cove at Gallipoli, Turkey, taking the next three months to navigate around the coasts of Greece, Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia, and Croatia. Following this, he spent three months walking the full length of the European Alps, taking on Mont Blanc, at 4810m Europe's highest mountain, in the process. Having left the Alps behind, he biked through Southern France and across Spain before paddling his sea kayak along the coast of Andalucia to Gibraltar and across the Straits of Gibraltar, between the Pillars of Hercules, to North Africa. This was a major achievement, a full traverse of Europe in eight months; 7,500 km from Turkey. However, for Huw, this was only the half-way point. During winter, the coldest and stormiest for many years, Huw continued the journey by bike through Morocco, Algeria and into Tunisia. The ever-worsening situation in the region forced him to abandon his bike in favour of an alternative mode of transport. A wonderful set of coincidences and circumstances saw Huw use an ocean rowboat to row, by night and day, the 1,500 km to Turkey with a young Slovenian adventurer. It was the first time he had ever rowed in his life.For the final month Huw kayaked the last 1,000 km to where it all began along a Turkish coast now awash with the flotsam and jetsam of the worst refugee crisis in Europe since World War II. After 363 days Huw arrived back to Gallipoli, in time for the centenary commemoration of Anzac Day. His incredible journey included many memorable events such as being held on a Turkish military island after inadvertently landing to camp, meeting an amazing one-legged hiker while crossing the Alps and arriving dog-tired and starving by kayak to Africa after local kindnesses beat back British and Spanish political differences over Gibraltar to allow a crossing of the Straits of Gibraltar. Huw took in the extraordinary land and seascapes, the rich and varied cultures and peoples and the current state of many of those countries. This is a fascinating story of endurance, and throughout this epic journey Huw raised funds for the children of war-torn Syria, in the process becoming Save the Children Australia's highest-ever individual fundraiser.

What did early explorers think of Elliot Bay, Seattle's major seaport, during their initial surveys in the 1840s? What hardships did the first white men who cruised through the San Juan Islands face? How was Puget Sound discovered? How did the highest volcano in the Cascade Range come to be called Mount Rainier? Such questions are answered in this examination of the early exploration and settlement of inland Washington. Illegible] unique text chronicles the history of many of these expeditions: George Vancouver's travels are described using his own journals, as well as those of his men, to explain both the route and Puget Sound Country; the early settlement history around the waters of Port Angeles, through Hood Canal, around Bainbridge and Whidbey Islands, south Puget Sound and the San Juan Islands is also recounted through journal writings of several explorers; and the author's own observations after his unique 30 day experience of tracing Vancouver's path and comparing what the early explorer saw with what exists today are offered. reasons for many names, as well. An appendix provides a muster table for the ship Discovery, between April 1st and May 31st, 1791 and for the ship Chatham, between May 1st and June 30 of the same year.

When Jet McDonald cycled four thousand miles to India and back, he didn't want to write a straightforward account. He wanted to go on an imaginative journey. The age of the travelogue is over: today we need to travel inwardly to see the world with fresh eyes. Mind is the Ride is that journey, a pedal-powered antidote to the petrol-driven philosophies of the past. The book takes the reader on a physical and intellectual adventure from West to East using the components of the bike as a metaphor for philosophy, which is woven into the cyclist's experience. Each chapter is based around a single component, and as Jet travels he adds new parts and new philosophies until the bike is 'built'; the ride to India is completed; and the relationship between mind, body and bicycle made apparent.

Red Sands, the follow-up to Caroline Eden's multi-award-winning Black Sea, is a reimagining of traditional travel writing using food as the jumping-off point to explore Central Asia. In a quest to better understand this vast heartland of Asia, Caroline navigates a course from the shores of the Caspian Sea to the sun-ripened orchards of the Fergana Valley. A book filled with human stories, forgotten histories and tales of adventure, Caroline is a reliable guide using food as her passport to enter lives, cities and landscapes rarely written about. Lit up by emblematic recipes, Red Sands is an utterly unique book, bringing in universal themes that relate to us all: hope, hunger, longing, love and the joys of eating well on the road.

Shortly before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, David Chaffetz slipped from the protection of Western culture and immersed himself in the customs, fears, and hopes of the Afghan people, setting out by car and on horseback for a long journey through the northwestern quarter of the country. "A Journey through Afghanistan" is the story, told in vivid, descriptive prose, of his experience--an account that reveals more about the Afghan people themselves than most books written either before or since.

In 2016, while working as a journalist in Yangon, Clare Hammond discovered an obscure map that showed a web of new railways spanning the length and breadth of the country - railways not shown on any other publicly available maps. She was determined to uncover the railways' origins, purpose, and most of all, the silence that surrounded them. She would spend three months travelling on these mysterious railways, and the next five years piecing their story together.

Her journey would take her from Myanmar's tropical south to the embattled mountain towns that border India and China. In dilapidated carriages, along tracks in disrepair, through contested ethnic states and former sites of forced labour, visiting temples, tea shops and festivals, Clare encountered a colourful and contradictory Myanmar through the stories of its people. Simultaneously a lush and evocative travelogue, an unsparing account of Myanmar's recent history, and an astonishing, conversation-shifting engagement with Britain's colonial legacy, On the Shadow Tracks is that rare and necessary thing: a book that finds and tells the truth.

Ranging from the early modern to the postcolonial, and dealing mainly with encounters in Europe, the Americas and the Middle East, Perspectives on Travel Writing is a collection of new essays by international scholars that examines some of the various contexts of travel writing, as well as its generic characteristics. Contributions examine the similarities between autobiography and memoir, fiction, and travel writing, and attempt to define travel writing as a genre. Utilising a variety of approaches, the essays display a shared concern with what travel writing does and how it does it. The effects of encounter and border-crossing on gender, 'race', and national identity are considered throughout. The collection begins with a review of some of the problems and issues facing the scholar of travel writing and moves on to a detailed discussion of the qualities of travel writing and its related forms. It then presents in chronological order a number of case studies, before closing with a critical discussion of approaches to the subject. An essay collection with broad historical and geographical coverage, this volume should appeal to students and researchers of travel and travel-related literatures from across the Humanities.

The journal of the Lander brothers provides a narrative of one of the most important missions of exploration in the history of West Africa. The editor's introduction contains much new material on the Landers and their journey drawn from hitherto unpublished sources, while an epilogue describes Richard Lander's last expedition to the Niger in 1832-4 and his death at Fernando Po. Originally published in 1965.

Pakistan's largest city is a sprawling metropolis of 20 million people. A place of political turbulence, where lavish wealth and absolute poverty sit side by side, and where the lines between idealism and corruption can quickly blur. Through the stories of those who know the city best - including a journalist, an activist, and an ambulance driver - Samira Shackle paints a vivid, vibrant and often violent portrait of Karachi over the past decade: a period during which the Taliban arrived in Pakistan, adding to the daily perils of its residents and pushing their city into the international spotlight. Nuanced and fast-paced, Karachi Vice is an immersive, electrifying journey around one of the most compelling cities in the world.

"Erika Fatland [is] shaping up to be one of the Nordics' most exciting new travel writers" National Geographic **SHORTLISTED FOR THE STANFORDS DOLMAN TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020** "A hauntingly lyrical meditation to the contingencies of history" Wall Street Journal "[An] impressive mix of history, reportage and travel memoir" Washington Post The Border is a book about Russia and Russian history without its author ever entering Russia itself; a book about being the neighbour of that mighty, expanding empire throughout history. It is a chronicle of the colourful, exciting, tragic and often unbelievable histories of these bordering nations, their cultures, their people, their landscapes. Through her last three documentary books - one about terrorism in Beslan, one about the 2011 terror attacks in Norway and one about post-Soviet Central Asia - social anthropologist Erika Fatland has established herself as a sharp observer and an outstanding interviewer at the forefront of Nordic non-fiction. Translated from the Norwegian by Kari Dickson

In the run up to the 1987 election Christopher Hope returned to his native South Africa after a twelve-year absence. The nature of that year's whites-only election and the bitter defeat of the liberals led him to write this satirical, evocative portrait of what it looked and felt like growing up in a country gripped by an absurd, racist insanity. Full of exquisite and despairing descriptions, Hope weaves together journalistic commentary and his own personal story as he encounters the bloody battles that have divided his homeland. This is a mordantly witty account of escape, displacement and disillusionment, and a modern classic of journalistic memoir.

An illuminating road trip through the history, life, and attractions of one of the most beautiful countries in the southern hemisphere
The beauty and grandeur of New Zealand has captured the imagination of movie-goers over the past couple of years, and the country is a dream destination for many around the world. Straying from the Flock is an intimate and personal account of one passionate traveler's visit to this incredible country, its mountains and beaches, fjords, rainforests, vineyards, and hidden eateries. Each of the fifty chapters describes one day in his travels-fishing, flying, cattle herding, befriending locals at every turn. Filled with colorful stories and memorable personalities, the book not only describes the trip of a lifetime, but captures a life-altering experience for its writer. From mountains and rainforests to cities and beaches, Straying from the Flock is both a moving memoir and personal travel guide to this amazing country.

This is an account of an American woman's recent travels through North Korea. Throughout her journey, she continually witnessed rundown villages, starving children with hollow eyes, haggard women crawling in the fields for single grains of rice and civilians unloading food aid at the point of bayonets. The author predicts that North Korea's economic reform, which has just started, will progress slowly, but that the country will one day be open to the outside world. It may, however, take another twenty years for this reform to be complete. Small, reluctant changes have already happened though, and this book expresses optimism that one day the North Korean people will end their isolation and join the world's mainstream.