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The seahorse-shaped island of Evia - Euboia in classical history and Negroponte for many centuries - is the second largest in Greece, yet it is almost completely undiscovered by tourists. Separated from the mainland by only a sliver of sea, Evia has had a turbulent history. Today it encapsulates the Greece of decades ago - unspoilt and pristine, a haven for the more discerning traveller. Evia, Sara Wheeler's first book, is the story of a five-month journey she made from the southern tip to the north of the island. Instantly enchanted by the landscape and languid pace of Evia, Wheeler immersed herself in the local way of life, where she witnessed centuries-old traditions, attended a goatherd's wedding and Bronze-age excavations, was harassed by Orthodox nuns, and spent nights in monasteries and village homes. Her story is a beautifully rendered account of a way of life that in the rest of Greece has all but disappeared and of an island on the cusp of change.
In 1926 Vita Sackville-West travelled to Iran to visit her husband, Harold Nicolson, who was serving as a diplomat in Teheran. Her route was deliberately slow-paced - she stopped in Egypt, where she sailed up the Nile to Luxor; and India, where she visited New Delhi and Agra before sailing across the Persian Gulf to Iraq and on through bandit-infested mountains to Teheran. She returned to England in an equally circuitous manner and despite travelling under dangerous circumstances, through communist Russia and Poland in the midst of revolution, her humour and sense of adventure never failed. Passenger to Teheran is a classic work, revealing the lesser-known side of one of the twentieth century's most luminous authors.
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Crete is a major travel destination with two million visitors per year. This guide is the product of a long summer the author spent living in a crumbling Venetian tower, explorer every inch of the island for future travelers. Packed with history, myth and travelogue, this should be an indispensable guide for all travelers to Crete. Included inside are maps and detailed itineraries that cover all the must-see cities, palaces, churches and places of historical and cultural significance on the island.
'Like a dread spirit he hovered over us', wrote a Soviet poet in 1960, referring to the man whose name is inextricably linked with Soviet Russia and Communism. In this, the classic biography of Joseph Stalin, Adam B. Ulam explores the secret of his power, the hold his memory still has over the imagination, the suffering he inflicted upon his own society, the unprecedented triumphs achieved by the Soviet Union under his leadership and the mysteries surrounding his death. Seeking answers not only in the character and life of Stalin himself, but in the history of the movement and society in which his career unfolded, Ulam has produced what is arguably the most incisive and revealing biography of one of history's most fascinating figures.
Hermann Goering was Hitler’s most loyal supporter, his designated successor, and the second most powerful man in the Third Reich. One of the main architects of the Nazi regime, he was also instrumental in the creation of the Gestapo and directly ordered the Final Solution. But who was the man behind the carefully constructed mask? Self-indulgent and ruthless, sybaritic and brutal, egotistical yet capable of self-effacement, weak-willed yet fiercely calculating, Goering was a contradictory, complex, and often buffoonish character. In this classic biography, Richard Overy takes the reader on a chilling journey into the heart of Hitler’s inner circle. He illuminates the many facets of Goering’s personality and charts his story from his golden days as Hitler’s most trusted commander to his failures and loss of power after the Battle of Britain, his sensational trial at Nuremberg, and his ignominious death by suicide on the eve of his execution.
Cote d¿Azur, as we know it today¿frequented by yachts and film stars¿is primarily a product of the last 150 years, but the historical impact of its central location dates back more than 2,500 years. Its geographic position and many natural harbors on the north side of the Mediterranean made it a stopover for early seafaring people like the Greeks; a natural extension of the Roman Empire; a target and base for Saracen raiders; and a place where the ambitions of French, Spanish and Italian kings and princes came into conflict. More recently it has been a destination for tourists, retirees and seekers of improved health, and a landing place for the invasion of France by the Allied armies in the Second World War. This book begins with Cote d¿Azur¿s early days and moves through to the present in a comprehensive, but concise, easily readable form that should help travelers relate what they are seeing today to what it was before. It is as historically factual as readily available data permits and tries to emphasize history that relates to what we see today.
Ancient travellers called the Caucasus the mountain of languages. Greeks, Persians, Romans, Goths, Arabs, Mongols and Turks have all passed through the region; poets and artists have been inspired by its rugged beauty and yet its history is a tragic one - for centuries it has been ravaged by virtually continuous war. Every 50 years, it seems, Russia attempts to take control of this hugely strategic part of the world - sandwiched as it is between Iran, Turkey and Russia and crossed by some of the most valuable oil pipelines in the world. The latest conflict to sweep across the area began when Vladimir Putin invaded Chechnya in 1999. Thousands of Russian soldiers and thousands more Chechens - ...
Lucie Duff Gordon was a world apart from her Victorian counterparts. An intellectual, traveller, writer and progressive social commentator, both she and her husband led an eccentric and bohemian life. This book relates the transformation she underwent as she threw off the shackles of Victorian England.
This book provides a collective biography of the Mond family and explores the philanthropic activities of Ludwig Mond and of his two sons Alfred and Robert in the field of art collecting, the fight against early childhood mortality, the advancement of research and of higher education, archaeological excavations in Egypt and Palestine, and for the founding of the State of Israel from the 1890s to the late 1930s. These activities resulted in the creation of the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome, the donation of Ludwig Mond’s art collection to the National Gallery in London, the funding of the excavation of the sacred Buchis Bulls at Armant in Egypt, the establishment of the Children’s Hospital in London, and the support of many natural science institutes and associations in England, France, Germany, and Italy.