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Founded in 1147, Moscow was for much of its early history in thrall to other nations - to the Khans, the Tartars and the Poles. The city was devastated by fire time and again, but with each rebuilding, it grew ever more magnificent. For every church that was destroyed, it seemed that two more were built. In this evocative and fascinating anthology, Moscow's turbulent growth is recorded through the voices of visitors and residents: Peter the Great's bloody reprisals after the revolt of the strel...

A whitewashed fishing village, a shapely signorina and an infatuated young man - head over heels on the heel of the boot of Southern Italy. This is Chris Harrison's hilarious and captivating story of leaving his previous life for La Dolce Vita - that quintessentially Italian seductive way of life, with its luscious foods, physical beauty and sun-drenched vistas. On a trip to Dublin, Chris falls head over heels in love with Daniela, an Italian girl with eyes the colour of Guinness, and follows he...

While Henry David Thoreau's travels to the Maine Woods and Cape Cod were well documented and have been followed by "Thoreauvians" for decades, his 1861 "journey west" with Horace Mann, Jr.-which took the duo from Massachusetts to Minnesota and back-was left to be veiled in mystery. This book details this, the last, longest, and least-known of Thoreau's excursions. The story of two 19th-century men and the 21st-century woman who was determined to follow their 4,000-mile path, this account will in...

A world-famous Oxford story from a new angle: the essential role played by the River Thames in the creation of Alices Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. It was on rowing trips with Alice Liddell and her sisters that Lewis Carroll (the Oxford don Charles Dodgson) invented many of the tales which were later incorporated into the books; it was on the riverbank on 4 July 1862 that Wonderland had its birth; and it was from particular incidents on or near the Thames that Carroll d...

Acclaimed chefs Tony Singh and Cyrus Todiwala are on a mission to wake Britain up to the versatility of spices.For too long, our spices have sat unused and dusty in cupboard shelves, when just a mere sprinking of cumin, a dash of turmeric or a handful of star anise has the power to turn our everyday food into an explosion of tastes and smells. Tony and Cyrus have taken to the road, exploring the British Isles and adding their own spicy twist to our most classic and best-loved dishes. Try jazzing...

Lovely West Lake, near scenic Hangzhou on China’s east coast, has been celebrated as a major tourist site since the twelfth century. Now as then, visitors boat to its islands, stroll through its gardens, worship in its temples, and immortalize it in poetry and painting. Hangzhou and West Lake have long served as icons of Chinese landscape appreciation, literary and artistic expression, and tourism. In the first in-depth English-language study of this picturesque locale, Xiaolin Duan examines th...

This important new collection explores representations of late seventeenth- through mid-nineteenth-century transatlantic women travelers across a range of historical and literary works. While at one time transatlantic studies concentrated predominantly on men's travels, this volume highlights the resilience of women who ventured voluntarily and by force across the Atlantic-some seeking mobility, adventure, knowledge, wealth, and freedom, and others surviving subjugation, capture, and enslavement...

Running through the heart of Colombia is a river emblematic of the fascination and tragedy of South America, the Magdalena. Considered by some to be the most dangerous place in the world, travellers along the river - for centuries the only route into the vast South American interior - were at the mercy of tropical disease, dangerous animals and precarious barges. A third of the victims of 'la violencia', Colombia's period of civil conflict which began in the 1950s, ended up in its waters. Townsh...

Few countries are as marked by their history as the Maltese islands of Malta and Gozo. Each period of Maltas turbulent historynot least its heroic role during the Second World Warhas added to its rich cultural fabric. Deborah Manleys selection of extracts reveals how generations of writers have viewed the landscapes of Malta and Gozo, the people of the islands, the splendours of Valletta and its famous harbour, and the celebrated festas, the village festivals that celebrate the islands Catholic...

In Contact! Jan turns her brilliantly observant eye to the human contacts she made, across the globe and though the decades. As a series of vignettes, some only a few lines long, she records hundreds of brief glimpses and fleeting encounters, celebrating the people who helped spark her view of the world and mould her responses. A vast range of human experience is here: most are anonymous, everyday encounters - children playing, a homeless man in Manhattan, a lascivious taxi-driver - but she also...