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Travel and Places


74403 GOLDEN TREASURES OF TROY: The Dream of


Heinrich Schliemann by Hervé Duchêne


The Treasure of Priam, donated to the Berlin Museum in 1881, disappeared during the Second World War and was presumed lost. Now, it has somehow resurfaced in Moscow, but to whom does it actually belong? This marvellous little book is packed with a host of


information, including a Who’s Who of Homer, excerpts from Schliemann’s extensive travel diaries and excavation journals, and details of his marriage to a woman 30 years his junior. 144 pocket-sized pages lavishly illus in colour. £7.95 NOW £3.50


72202 NEW HISTORY OF INDIA: Seventh Edition by Stanley Wolpert


Condensing 4,000 years of the subcontinent’s history into a graceful and engaging text, Wolpert discusses modern India’s rapidly growing economy and population, considering the prospects for her future. He begins with the earliest civilisations of the Indus basin, which date between 2300 and 1750BC, then to the Aryan age of 1500-1000BC, as the Aryan tribes from the north pushed ever southwards and then to the first unification of the subcontinent in the Mauryan Empire, around 250BC. The “Classical Age”, during which Hindu arts and culture flourished between AD320-700 then hit the religious juggernaut that was the rise of Islam, and the Muslim Mughal emperors controlled India for the best part of 900 years, before interest from Europe, and Britain in particular saw the country enter another Imperial period. Photos and maps, 530pp, updated. Remainder mark. £32.50 NOW £6


72324 RESOLUTE by Martin Sandler In 1845, Sir John Franklin and his crew of 128 men set out from England in search of the elusive Northwest Passage. They sailed to the Canadian Arctic in two massive ships ominously named the ‘Erebus’ and the ‘Terror’. They vanished into the frozen north and were never heard from again. Among the ships who set sail in search of Franklin was Queen Victoria’s greatest naval vessel, the HMS ‘Resolute’. When the ship became locked in Arctic ice in 1854, the expedition leader abruptly ordered the crew to abandon her. A year later, a Connecticut whaler discovered the ‘Resolute’ drifting and deserted. 298pp, roughcut edges, woodcuts, colour plates.


$24.95 NOW £3.50 72468 A PRIVATEER’S VOYAGE ROUND THE


WORLD written by George Shelvocke George Shelvocke was a poverty-stricken ex-naval officer, licensed to attack and plunder enemy Spanish ships. Shortly after rounding Cape Horn, one of the crew shot a black albatross, an event later to be immortalised in Coleridge’s Rime Of The Ancient Mariner, and Shelvocke’s troubles began. Off Chile his ship, laden with considerable loot, was wrecked in the Juan Fernandez Islands. Undaunted, he built another vessel and, eventually returned to England via Macao, loaded with Spanish plunder. But back at home, he was arrested for piracy and defrauding his shareholders. Abridged, 195 pages, map. £12.99 NOW £3


72651 THE HEART OF THE GREAT ALONE:


Scott, Shackleton and Antarctic Photography by David Hempleman-Adams, Sophie Gordon and Emma Stuart


Comprises a treasure trove of photos, some never before reproduced in book form, from the two greatest Antarctic expeditions ever. None of these are more remarkable than the records of the official chroniclers of two epic Antarctic expeditions, that of Scott and, four years later, Shackleton. This stupendous volume reproduces the best of these marvellous images - ships encased in ice floes, ice cliffs, ravines, campsites, dog sleds, penguins, and the incomparable beauty of Antarctic flora and fauna. Together, not only do they form an invaluable record of an environment that global warming has forever changed. 256 pages 24cm by 28 cm with maps, photos in b/w, sepia/white and colour on every page. Brief biographies. $47.50 NOW £14


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72767 GREAT BRITISH RAILWAY JOURNEYS by Charlie Bunce


Great British Railway Journeys, presented by Michael Portillo, was originally named Adventures with Bradshaw, after George Bradshaw who in 1839 famously began compiling railway timetables then published a guidebook for Victorians who wished to travel the country by train. For £500, the show’s producer acquired a battered copy of Bradshaw’s guide from an antiquarian book dealer. In this book, Bunce takes us on nine of the journeys from the first two series: Liverpool to Scarborough, Swindon to Penzance, Buxton to London, Preston to Edinburgh, Ledbury to Holyhead, Ayr to Skye, Newcastle to Melton Mowbray, Brighton to Cromer and London to Hastings. Illus. lavishly with colour stills. 272pp. £20 NOW £7.50


73262 CAPTAIN BLIGH’S SECOND CHANCE An Eyewitness Account of his Return to the South Seas by Lt George Tobin edited by Roy Schreiber


What happened in 1789 during Captain Bligh’s first voyage to the South Pacific has been the subject of a multitude of books and films. When he arrived back in England on 14 March 1790 it was to a hero’s welcome and within a year he was ready to make a second attempt at his mission. Among the officers was Lt. George Tobin, an officer of wide interests, with an enquiring mind and a skill with watercolour who kept a journal of the expedition. When he returned he completed a draft memoir of the voyage, annotated and illustrated, which he hoped to publish. It has taken over 200 years for his wish to be fulfilled. 16 pages of watercolours. 184pp. £19.99 NOW £7


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74365 COLLINS WORLD ATLAS: Mini Edition by HarperCollins Publishers


Clear detailed and up-to-date mapping, explore the world from your new pocket atlas. Maps of the countries of the world in colour, physical features of each continent, climate, population and urbanisation maps begin this super, handy reference paperback. 256pp, all in colour and with index.


£5.99 NOW £2.75


73853 ATLANTIC: A Vast Ocean of a Million Stories


by Simon Winchester A mixture of history, science and reportage. Travelling around its edges and across its huge expanse, the author reports from the places that encapsulate its most enthralling stories, for instance, the age of exploration and the colonisation of the Americas, the rise and fall of the slave trade, great battles and the


flourishing of transatlantic commerce. It should be remembered that the Atlantic has been the setting for some of the most important exchanges, ideas and challenges in the history of civilisation - a kind of fulcrum around which the power and influence of the modern world has been distributed. 498 pages illus, maps and glossary.


£25 NOW £7.50


74400 MASQUE OF AFRICA: Glimpses of African Belief by V. S. Naipaul


Beginning in Uganda, at the centre of the continent, V. S. Naipaul’s journey takes in Ghana and Nigeria, the Ivory Coast and Gabon and ends, as the country, does in South Africa. Focussing upon the theme of belief, sometimes the political or economic realties, Naipaul examines the fragile but enduring quality of the old world of magic. 325pp, paperback. £9.99 NOW £3


72784 RED DUST: A Path Through China by Ma Jian


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In 1983, Ma Jian turned 30 and was overwhelmed by the desire to escape the confines of his life in Beijing. Deng Xiaoping was introducing economic reform but clamping down on ‘Spiritual Pollution’. Young people were rebelling and Ma Jian was under surveillance from his work unit and the police. His ex-wife was seeking custody of their daughter, his girlfriend sleeping with another man and he could no longer find the inspiration to write or paint. He set off on a three year journey and depicts a land of extraordinary physical beauty and interest and his prose is as elegant as Chinese calligraphy. 324pp in paperback, maps. £8.99 NOW £3


73120 A MOUNTAIN IN TIBET by Charles Allen


Charles Allen traces a legend to Western Tibet where Mount Kailas is worshipped by Hindus and Buddhists alike as the home of their gods and the navel of the world. Close by are the mighty rivers of the sacred Ganges, the Indus, the Sutlej and Tsangpo- Brahmaputra, for centuries Kailas remained an enigma to the outside world and then a succession of remarkable men took up the challenge of penetrating the hostile, frozen wastelands. 293pp, paperback, maps and photos. £9.99 NOW £5


73332 A SINGLE SWALLOW by Horatio Clare


A journey of 6,000 miles across two continents and 14 countries is nothing to swallows - they do it twice a year. But for a writer and bird watcher, this is the expedition of a lifetime. By trains, cars, buses, motorbikes, trucks, canoes, planes, one camel and three ships, Horatio Clare followed migrating swallows (Hirundo rustica) from reed beds outside Bloemfontein, where millions roost in February, to a barn in Wales where a pair nest in May, he found much more than he was looking for. Magical and gripping, the book combines the best of travel writing and nature writing in a thrilling and seductive account by the author of ‘Running for the Hills’. A beautifully laid out large square softback with illustrations, 327pp. £12.99 NOW £6


73668 A TRAVELLER’S LIFE by Eric Newby George Eric Newby (1919-2006) was born near Hammersmith Bridge and began his life of travels with pram-rides down the dark streets of Barnes and the jungles of Harrods and progressed swiftly to solo excursions around the slums of Hammersmith, a navigation of the London sewer system and a bicycle ride to Italy! His love of travel and adventure was further nurtured by wartime service. Captured in August 1942 during a raid on Sicily, he escaped and hid out in the Apennine hills, aided by a Slovenian woman, Wanda, who would later become his wife and travelling companion. He was eventually recaptured at the end of 1943 and described this time in his 1971 memoir Love and War in the Apennines. His best known work, the 1958 A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, described an expedition to the Nuristan mountains of Afghanistan, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest travel books of all time, celebrated for its comedic moments as well as its description of a region barely known to Europeans. Newby published this compendium of travels and other events in his fascinating life in 1982, and we are offering here the 2010 paperback edition. Here too is New York, Italy to Germany with the Gestapo, all over Asia, Africa, the Middle East and even his reluctant involvement in a tiger shoot near Hyderabad in 1963. With all his hallmark infectious enthusiasm and wit. Photos, 343pp. £8.99 NOW £4.50


73907 CHINA A-Z by Kai Strittmatter The Chinese don’t eat soup, they drink it and their surnames come before their first names. Good sense is not found in their heads but in their hearts and white is the colour of mourning, and if one colour sums up China it is yellow. Here is a guide to avoiding the numerous pitfalls of Chinese culture and etiquette and understanding the world’s fastest growing superpower in this fun guide to life, the Chinese way. 316pp in paperback.


£7.99 NOW £3 WAR AND MILITARIA


I don’t know what effect these men will have upon the enemy, but, by God, they terrify me.


-Duke of Wellington


74914 BARBED-WIRE UNIVERSITY: The Real Lives of Allied Prisoners of War in


the Second World War by Midge Gillies


The reality of being a WWII PoW was a constant battle against boredom and brutality, and the experience varied enormously, depending on who your jailers were and at which stage of the war you had been captured. However,


prisoners made great efforts to make the best of their lot, and here, drawing upon letters and interviews with survivors, Midge Gillies casts a fascinating new light on the PoW experience. With next to nothing in the way of materials, men applied their initiative to forming orchestras, building a golf course and even constructing rudimentary operating theatres on the Thailand-Burma railway. Then there were the concert and theatre groups, sports (especially football), beekeeping and all manner of what appear bizarre pastimes, all of which served the purpose of keeping the mind active and were often cover for more illicit activities. Education was very popular, and men would attend lectures, learn new languages and at one German camp they even sat officially recognised exams on such a scale that it earned the sobriquet of “the Barbed-Wire University”. The author’s father was a PoW in Germany for 18 months and it was he who provided the inspiration, often inadvertently, for this book. By turns funny, thrilling, tragic and moving. 486pp paperback with 65 b/w photos.


£8.99 NOW £4


74734 A BRILLIANT LITTLE OPERATION


by Paddy Ashdown


Paddy Ashdown had just won the gruelling Devizes to Westminster canoe race, and returning to base on the train found himself in a compartment with an athletic- looking middle-aged man, who asked him about his work in the Royal Marines. Ashdown pompously replied that it was top


secret, and only afterwards realised that the man was his hero “Blondie” Hasler, the Marine who led the “Cockleshell” raid on Bordeaux Harbour in 1942, described by Mountbatten as “a brilliant little operation”. This book is an account of that operation using in-depth research and the accounts of the two men out of ten who made it back to base. Hasler was one of these and the book celebrates his courage and eccentric personality as well as being a memorial to his comrades who failed to get home. Hasler had an iron determination, a cool organisational capacity and a fascination with canoes which he had built from scratch when he was a boy in Portsmouth. When the Combined Operations leadership were looking for a way to counter large-scale blockade- running in Bordeaux, Hasler convinced them that canoes were an ideal unobtrusive way of attaching limpet explosives to ships in harbour. Unknown to Hasler, however, a local resistance leader, Claude de Baissac, was also planning a similar attack with the support of the British SOE. It is not known whether Mountbatten was aware of both operations, but had the two been co- ordinated, more of Hasler’s team would almost certainly have survived. 420pp, maps, photos in b/w and colour. £25 NOW £7.50


74468 ARABS AND THE HOLOCAUST: The Arab-


Israeli War of Narratives by Gilbert Achcar


The Arab-Israeli conflict goes far beyond the wars waged in the Middle East. In this ground-breaking book political scientist Prof. Gilbert Achcar, who grew up in Beirut, explores these conflicting narratives and their role in the Middle East dispute. He analyses the various


Arab responses to the Holocaust from the first intimations of what was happening in 1930s Germany, through the creation of Israel and occupation of Palestine and right up to the present day, critically and dispassionately assessing their historical and political contexts. Perhaps what is the most impressive is the way Achcar combines his historian’s profound understanding of how Arab politics works with a fine appreciation of the almost unimaginable trauma and suffering on both sides that fuels the positions and opinions of those concerned. He has drawn on many previously unseen sources in multiple languages to offer us a unique ideological mapping of the Arab world which helps defuse the propaganda war that blocks discourse and shines much-needed light upon a subject so long dominated by partisanship and deliberate misinformation. 358pp.


£25 NOW £6 74998 BEAUTY AND THE


SORROW by Peter Englund In this masterly and highly original narrative history of the First World War, Peter Englund takes a revolutionary new approach to its history and looks closely at the experiences of the average man and woman. The 20 people from whose journals and letters he draws are from Belgium, Denmark and


France, Great Britain, Germany and the Austro- Hungarian Empire, Italy, Australia and New Zealand, Russia, Venezuela and the US. There is a 12 year old German girl thrilled with the news of the army’s victories because it means that she and her classmates are allowed to shout and scream at school. There is an American woman married to a Polish aristocrat, living a life of quiet luxury when the war begins but who will be moved, ultimately, to declare: ‘Looking Death in the eyes, one loses the fear of Him’. From field surgeon to nurse to fighter pilot, some are on the Western Front others in the Balkans, East Africa and Mesopotamia. Two will die, one will never hear a shot fired, some will become prisoners of war and others will be celebrated as heroes. They will be united by their involvement, writing or otherwise in The Great, and Terrible War. A brilliant mosaic of perspectives. 540pp, roughcut pages, translated from the Swedish and here in US import. $35 NOW £10


75037 ZULU FRONTIERSMAN by Major C. G. Dennison DSO, edited by


Ron Lock and Peter Quantrill Offering vivid descriptions of the key battles and skirmishes of the Anglo-Zulu and Boer Wars, including moving descriptions of the besieged towns of Ladysmith, Kimberley and Mafeking, as well as intricate details of everyday life, this gripping volume provides a rare and


personal glimpse into an intriguing era of military history, in 19th century Africa. The original book was published in 1904 in abridged form but, now, the riveting memoirs of George Dennison have been cleverly reworked and this new edition reinstates many details, including Dennison’s life growing up on the frontier, the early wars in southern Africa and, crucially, his experiences during the Anglo-Zulu wars. In his late teens, he joined the Bloemfontein Rangers as a rough and ready trooper, before making his way up through the military hierarchy to become a distinguished officer whose advice was sought by the likes of Lord Kitchener and Sir Garnet Wolseley. He fought against Afrikaners, Dutchmen, Voortrekkers and Boers, as well as the Xhosa, the battle- axe-wielding Basutos, the Transvaal baPedi and the amaZulu warriors of King Cershwayo, becoming equal in standing to any legendary figure of the American West. His description of the advance of 9,000 Swazis singing their wailing war-song makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck. 255 pages with b/w archive photos. $49.95 NOW £7


74911 A VERY STRANGE WAY TO GO TO WAR: The


Canberra in the Falklands by Andrew Vine


When she was launched on 16 March 1960 she was considered the most beautiful ocean liner ever built. Vast and brilliant white, P&O’s flagship, SS Canberra, was a beacon of elegance and opulence, the last icon of an age of leisurely luxury travel. Then, in early 1982


Britain suddenly found itself at war for the first time in a generation and after a decade of cruising to Australia and back, she was requisitioned as a troopship at Gibraltar and instead of carrying well-heeled holidaymakers to the tropics, Canberra found herself bearing the Marines and Paras into battle in the inhospitable climes of the Falkland Islands. This is the epic tale of how a luxury liner and her civilian crew suddenly found itself at war and host to thousands of soldiers, a floating hospital, a maritime prison, rained down upon with bombs, shells and missiles, then returning a vanquished and bewildered army of enemy conscripts, many barely more than boys, back to Argentina before returning home to Southampton, dented, grubby and streaked with rust, to a tumultuous hero’s welcome from over 120,000 people on the shoreline. She was soon spruced up again, and for the remaining 15 years of her service her role in the Falklands saw that she was always fully booked. 321pp, colour and b/w photos. £20 NOW £7


74956 FIRESHIP: The Terror Weapon of the Age of Sail by Peter Kirsch


The gruesome fireships - packed with incendiary and sometimes explosive material - were aimed at an enemy ship by volunteers who bailed out into a small boat at the last minute. They were hit and miss weapons, dangerous for those operating them, as well as those who were their target, since sailing ships were subject to wind, tide and wave action, and not manoeuvrable as modern powered vessels are. The panic they caused amongst sailors who usually could not swim and whose own highly flammable wooden ships were probably themselves packed with explosives, often won the battle before it really started. Terror-inducing fireships had been used in antiquity, but it was their successful revival during the Armada campaign that led to their adoption as an integral part of the battle fleet. During the 17th century, increasingly sophisticated ‘fireworks’ were designed to fit into purpose-built ships, and advanced plans were worked out for their employment. This awe-inspiring book is the first history to be written about a powerful, much used but little understood weapon, revealing its technology, its full impact on naval history and the reasons for its decline. 256 pages packed with illus in colour and b/w.


$74.95 NOW £25


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