A sparkling new translation of one of the greatest travel books ever written Marco Polo's seminal account of his journeys in the east in a collectible clothbound edition Marco Polo was the most famous traveller of his time His voyages began in 1271 with a visit to China after which he served the Kublai Khan on numerous diplomatic missions On his return to the West he was made a prisoner of war & met Rustichello of Pisa with whom he collaborated on this book His account of his travels offers a fascinating glimpse of what he encountered abroad unfamiliar religions customs & societies; the spices & silks of the East; the precious gems exotic vegetation & wild beasts of faraway lands Evoking a remote & long-vanished world with colour & immediacy Marco's book revolutionized western ideas about the then unknown East & is still one of the greatest travel accounts of all time For this edition
- the first completely new English translation of the Travels in over fifty years
- Nigel Cliff has gone back to the original manuscript sources to produce a fresh authoritative new version The volume also contains invaluable editorial materials including an introduction describing the world as it stood on the eve of Polo's departure & examining the fantastical notions the West had developed of the East Marco Polo was born in 1254 joining his father on a journey to China in 1271 He spent the next twenty years travelling in the service of Kublai Khan There is evidence that Marco travelled extensively in the Mongol Empire & it is fairly certain he visited India He wrote his famous Travels whilst a prisoner in Genoa Nigel Cliff was previously a theatre & film critic for The Times & a regular writer for The Economist among other publications & now writes historical nonfiction books His first book The Shakespeare Riots was published in 2007 & shortlisted for the Washington-based National Award for Arts Writing His second book The Last Crusade Vasco da Gama & the Birth of the Modern World appeared in 2011 & was shortlisted for the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize

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He did not return to Morocco for another twenty-nine years travelling instead through more than forty countries on the modern map covering seventy-five thousand miles & getting as far north as the Volga as far east as China & as far south as Tanzania He wrote of his travels & comes across as a superb ethnographer biographer anecdotal historian & occasional botanist & gastronome With this edition by Mackintosh-Smith Battuta's Travels takes its place alongside other indestructible masterpieces of the travel-writing genre ...

Ostensibly written by an English knight the Travels purport to relate his experiences in the Holy Land Egypt India & China Mandeville claims to have served in the Great Khan's army & to have travelled in 'the lands beyond'
- countries populated by dog-headed men cannibals Amazons & Pygmies Although Marco Polo's slightly earlier narrative ultimately proved more factually accurate Mandeville's was widely known used by Columbus Leonardo da Vinci & Martin Frobisher & inspiring writers as diverse as Swift Defoe & Coleridge This intriguing blend of fact exaggeration & absurdity offers both fascinating insight into & subtle criticism of fourteenth-century conceptions of the world
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The events surrounding the Trayvon Martin murder trial & acquittal bring to public & private discourse the violent brutal murders of Emmett Till Medgar Evers Malcolm X & Dr King while bringing back to memory the racially provoked murders of Black American & Black immigrant men such as Amadou Diallo Oscar Grant & more recently Michael Brown in Ferguson & Eric Garner in New York The name of Trayvon Martin has become trope in the 21st century which crystallizes US racial politics regarding Blackness specifically the Black male a metaphoric symbol of this history of America's regard for Black bodies as well as a metonym a name that has become a contemporary substitute for terrorist attacks targeting Black bodies The works included here imply that Trayvon Martin as trope reverberates in the most conscientious of US'; & this epic tragedy is one that has plagued US' since Africans & people of African descent first arrived to the Americas The essays range from the profoundly personal to the thoroughly investigated & conclude with the statement from President Barack H Obama in the epilogue The Trayvon Martin in US is essential reading for anyone who is involved in race relations or teaches the topic ...

The second part of The History of The Lord of the Rings an enthralling account of the writing of the Book of the Century which contains many additional scenes &

Includes:: the unpublished Epilogue in its entirety The Treason of Isengard continues the account of the creation of The Lord of the Rings started in the earlier volume The Return of the Shadow It races the great expansion of the tale into new lands & peoples south & east of the Misty Mountains the emerence of Lothlorien of Ents of the Riders of Rohan & of Saruman the White in the fortress of Isengard In brief outlines & pencilled drafts dashed down on scraps of paper are seen the first entry of Galadriel the earliest ideas of the history of Gondor & the original meeting of Aragorn & Eowyn its significance destined to be wholly transformed The book also contains a full account of the original map which was to be the basis of the emerging geography of Middle-earth This series of fascinating books has now been repackaged to complement the distinctive & classic style of the black cover' A-format paperbacks of The Hobbit The Lord of the Rings The Silmarillion & Unfinished Tales

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Geronimo Stilton is a bestselling children's series with a dedicated international fan base It follows the adventures of the Geronimo Stilton the famouse journalist searching for the next hot scoop 112 pages 127 Illustrations black & white Stilton Geronimo ...

A boy & his dog set sail in search of treasure braving stormy seas mountains snowy & cold the forest where the monkeys swing the swamp where the bullfrogs sing & other challenging obstacles before finally reaching the end of their quest But wait! Pirate Frank is A GIRL! & she doesn't want to share Back home they go retracing their steps before sailing away to dream of the treasure they've lost ...

A quiet residential street in south London A husband & wife are discovered imprisoned in their own home Badly dehydrated they've been bound & beaten He is close to death But worse is to come their young son is missing When Detective Inspector Jack Caffery is called in to investigate the similarities with events in his own past make it impossible for him to view this new crime dispassionately & as he digs deeper
- as he attempts to hold his own life together in the face of ever more disturbing revelations about both his past & his present
- the real nightmare begins

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Please note this is a region 2 DVD & will require a region 2 (Europe) or region Free DVD Player in order to play Based on the Sunday Times bestselling novel by crime writer Mo Hayder THE TREATMENT heralds a new & unforgettable turn in the Nordic noir phenomenon A husband & wife are discovered imprisoned in their own home Badly dehydrated they ve been bound & beaten He is close to death But worse is to come their young son is missing Detective Inspector Nick Cafmeyer is called in to investigate & as he digs deeper he exposes an insidious criminal network that unnervingly has links to his own past Extras Director Interview Deleted Scenes Featurette ...

A delightful picture book with a wonderful twist which encourages young children to think about the way animals & humans live side by side The tree Home to a family of birds in their nest squirrels in their drey & rabbits in their burrow But what happens to the animals when a man & woman decide to cut it down & use it for their dream house? Can the tree be home to both the animals & the humans? A simple yet fun & distinctive picture book with a strong environmental message about the importance of respecting animal habitats by the award-winning Neal Layton ...