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A superb collection of 150 black-and-white photographs of 1930s Ladakh, capturing its final days as a hub of trade routes between Tibet and Kashmir, India and Yarkand. These portraits of people, landscapes and Buddhist ceremonies taken by amateur photographer Rupert Wilmot, are notable for their careful composition, fine detail and engaging informality. They have been meticulously researched and captioned by Nicky Harman and Roger Bates, respectively, niece and nephew of Rupert Wilmot, and include maps, an introduction and a bibliography. Of considerable historical and ethnographic interest. Claude Rupert Trench Wilmot (1897-1961) was a British army officer stationed in India during the 1930...
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Seeking respite from a novel that has hit an impasse, Vikramajit Ram accepts an invitation from his friend Manoj Bawa to join him on a drive to Ladakh. It is the start of the Himalayan summer of 2009; the high mountain passes have just opened for the season. As the journey progresses, Vikram finds that the quirky company at the wheel and the otherworldly beauty of this Shangri La are the perfect fix for his jaded senses. On a high - literal and metaphoric - on the Highest Motorable Pass in the World, he abandons his doomed work of fiction to write instead of this journey. The outcome derives its title from the Ladakhi words for 'lake and 'pass . Weaving together elements of art and architecture, natural history and biography, Tso and La is a tribute to this enigmatic and deeply mystical corner of India. Against a backdrop of uncontainable grandeur, Manoj and Vikram find prayer flags and child-monks, magpies and wild asses, vast glacial lakes and surreal sand dunes. Four weeks and 8,200 kilometres later, the friends return home to Bangalore. One throws himself into a new job; the other embarks on a new journey of words.
Over the past four centuries botanists and gardeners in the British Isles have gathered, maintained and propagated many varying species of plants. Their work has been documented in innumerable books and articles which are often difficult to trace. The Dictionary of British and Irish Botanists and Horticulturalists represents a time-saving reference source for those who wish to discover more about the lives and achievements of the horticulturalists listed. The dictionary's utility comes not only from indicating the major publications of the named authors, but also the location of their herbaria and manuscripts.; The previous 1977 edition of the Dictionary has for many years been a much used s...
Histories of Technology, the Environment and Modern Britain brings together historians with a wide range of interests to take a uniquely wide-lens view of how technology and the environment have been intimately and irreversibly entangled in Britain over the last 300 years. It combines, for the first time, two perspectives with much to say about Britain since the industrial revolution: the history of technology and environmental history. Technologies are modified environments, just as nature is to varying extents engineered. Furthermore, technologies and our living and non-living environment are both predominant material forms of organisation – and self-organisation – that surround and make us. Both have changed over time, in intersecting ways. Technologies discussed in the collection include bulldozers, submarine cables, automobiles, flood barriers, medical devices, museum displays and biotechnologies. Environments investigated include bogs, cities, farms, places of natural beauty and pollution, land and sea. The book explores this diversity but also offers an integrated framework for understanding these intersections.
The forgotten story of the Cook family, Crawley and the Great War.
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“The importance of this book ... cannot be overstated.” —The Globe and Mail As the world marks the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I, the bestselling novel Generals Die in Bed becomes more relevant than ever. Originally published in 1930, the landmark novel was one of the first to shatter the world’s illusion that war is a glorious endeavour. Instead, this chilling first-hand account brought readers face to face with the brutal, ugly realities of life in the trenches. Often compared to All Quiet on the Western Front and A Farewell to Arms, Generals Die in Bed was described by the New York Times as “a burning, breathing, historic document.” With veterans of WWI no longer here to tell their tales, this book stands as a lasting monument to the horror of war.
Vibrant and original memoirs of a civil servant in India from 1858 to 1893, telling of rapacious planters, improvised fifteen-gun salutes, lofty Rajas and dissolute Englishmen. Vivid and candid tales from a huge bureaucracy, in rich descriptive prose