The magical qualities of stained glass have an enduring appeal, but church windows tend to be ignored as a form of creative and artistic expression. How to Look at Stained Glass is a fresh, unstuffy g
This book is a cultural history of Tangier, something not done before. Tangier is perennially fascinating and experiencing a major renaissance. It's a popular travel destination once again and people
Tourism in Sardinia is booming, yet there is nothing else in print that deals with the island's incredibly rich history and culture, which stretches back to the Neolithic period. This book details eve
"Memory's images, once they are fixed in words, are erased," Marco Polo said. "Perhaps I am afraid of losing Venice all at once, if I speak of it, or perhaps, speaking of other cities, I have already
Written just after the Second World War, Perseus in the Wind (named after the constellation) is perhaps the most personal, and haunting, of all Freya Stark's writings. She muses on the seasons, the ef
This classic guide to Istanbul by Hilary Summer-Boyd and John Freely - the 'best travel guide to Istanbul' ("The Times"), 'a guide book that reads like a novel' ("New York Times") - is here, for the f
For centuries, the food and culinary delights of the Byzantine empire - centred on Constantinople - have captivated the west, although it appeared that very little information had been passed down to
Rome, the Eternal City - birthplace of western civilisation and soul of the ancient world - has a history that stretches back two thousand five hundred years. It is also one of the most-visited places
"Are we the same, I wonder, when all our surroundings, association, acquaintances are changed? I conclude that it is not the person who danced with you at Mansfield St who writes to you today from Per
Marrakech is the heart and lifeblood of Morocco's ancient storytelling tradition. For nearly a thousand years, storytellers have gathered in the Jemaa el Fna, the legendary square of the city, to reco
In 1922, his dreams of an independent Arabia shattered, T.E. Lawrence enlisted in the RAF under the assumed name John Hume Ross. Though methodical and restrictive, life there seemed to suit Lawrence:
For Cyrus Massoudi, a young Britishborn Iranian, the country his parents were forced to flee thirty years ago was a place wholly unknown to him. Wanting to make sense of his roots and piece together t
It calls for a writer more able at words to picture the sheer beauty of the Mountain. To convey the altering feeling of morning, or high noon; of afternoon, and deep midnight; of the golden scores of
"The paradise of adventurers", Shanghai during World War II was suffused with dangerous glamour. Racketeers, cutthroats and con-men jostled for advantage as secret agents of the great powers waged a c
One of the most famous and tortured romances in history—between Elizabeth I, Queen of England, and Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex—began in 1587, when she was 53 and he was 19. Their passionate affair
Over the course of several months during 1931 and 1932, Robert Byron journeyed to three countries teetering on the brink of change. In Russia, which was stricken by famine, Stalin's dictatorship was
What turned Adolf Hitler, a relatively normal and apparently unexceptional young man, into the very personification of evil? To answer this question, acclaimed historian Brigitte Hamann has turned to
Though steeped in a rich and ancient past, Calabria had been lost from view when Norman Douglas visited in the early 1900s. Within Douglas’s vibrant account of his adventures is woven the rich
This is the story of two of the most heroic, and controversial, figures in archaeology: Heinrich Schliemann, who discovered the remains of Troy, and Arthur Evans who unearthed the great city of King M
Scattered in a crescent in the sparkling waters of the Aegean, the islands of the Sporades are known to Greek fishermen as "the gates of the wind." It was to this unspoilt archipelago that Michael Car
A century before the emergence of its cousin, the Sicilian Mafia, the criminal organization known as “The Camorra” was establishing a deadly grip on Naples and Campania. Today, their influence is as s
A goldsmith’s daughter who eludes the Prince of Darkness, three wandering brothers born from a walnut tree, the Princess of Fantasistan, the case of the Shah’s lost ruby ring, the leopard
Egypt’s belle epoque was a period of incredible extravagance during which the Khedive Ismail’s Cairo became the mirror image, both architecturally and socially, of decadent Paris. The glamour and hedo
A mixture of travelogue, history and war journalism, Allah's Mountains tells the story of the conflict between this nation of mountain tribes and the might of the Russian army. It is also a story of t
The Arabian Nights: A Companion guides the reader into this celebrated labyrinth of storytelling. It traces the development of the stories from prehistoric India and Pharaonic Egypt to modern times. I
This pioneering book considers the culinary cultures of the Middle East in a variety of contexts. The contributors discuss various aspects of historical and contemporary processes, including likely or
