Stamford Raffles was born into genteel poverty in the UK in 1781. He joined the East India Company at the age of fourteen & worked his way up to become Lieutenant Governor of Java when the British seized that island for some five years in 1811. There he fell in love with all things Javanese & vaunted it as a place of civilization as he discovered himself as a man of science as well as commerce. A humane & ever-curious figure, his administration was a period of energetic reform & boisterous research that culminated in his History of Java in 1817 & it remains the starting-point of all subsequent studies of Indonesian culture. Personal tragedy & ill-health stalked his final years in the East. Yet, though dying at the early age of 44 & dogged by the hostility of lesser men, he would still find time to found the city-state of Singapore & guide it through its first dangerous years. Here, mythologised by the British & demonised by the Dutch, he is more than a remote founding father & remains a charter for its independence & its enduring values. In this intriguing book, part history, part travelogue, Nigel Barley re-visits the places that were important in the life of Stamford Raffles & evaluates his heritage in an account that is both humorous & insightful. ...

Gladiators & goddesses, philosophers & poets, epic battles & romantic landscapes
- the classical world has for centuries captivated
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Derry Brabbs spent the best part of a decade taking the photographs for the large-format illustrated walking guides which A. Wainwright wrote from 1984 to 1992, when his legendary series of Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells was complete. This is a fascinating account of Derry`s training & adventures from his early days as a photographer, including his first meeting with Wainwright & the joys, trials & tribulations of working on projects with the great fell walker. This work provides insights into Wainwright`s unique approach to publishing, straight from the horse`s mouth. It features spectacular photographs of famous long-distance walking routes including the Coast to Coast Walk & the Pennine Way. It also gives a wealth of practical advice for the would-be outdoor photographer. ...

For nearly 700 years debate has raged over the true nature of William Wallace & his role in Scotland`s turbulent history. Was he the ` Braveheart` of Blind Harry`s legendary account, the bold, but savage hero of the Scottish wars? Or, as some contemporary chroniclers attested, nothing but a villainous thief & vagrant fugitive? This book draws on a wide range of contemporary & modern sources to look behind the figure of legend to find Wallace`s true character. These superb photographs trace Wallace`s life from his modest upbringing in south-west Scotland to his remarkable victory as a `guerilla` leader & military commander at Stirling Bridge, & to his eventual betrayal, capture & painful execution seven years later. This is an essential travel companion for a journey through the landscapes & places associated with Wallace in Scotland & Northern Engl&, & a vibrant new insight into the reality of Scotland`s most famous battlefield hero. ...

The Maroons (escaped slaves) of Jamaica are famous. Not so the Maroons of another Caribbean island
- Dominica, also a former British
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Set between Normandy & Arizona, In the Gold of Time is a seductive tale of silences & dark, half-revealed secrets, & a haunting elegy for innocence lost in a lost world. A young father holidays by the sea near Dieppe with his reproachfully perfect wife & their twin daughters. Returning from the local shop, he meets an eccentric old lady, Alice Berthier, who lives with he mute sister, Clemence. Their mysterious house is full of old photographs & strange objects
- sacred ceremonial masks once belonging to the Hopi, a tribe of Native Americans from Arizona. Haunted by memories of a tragic past, Alice takes comfort in her new companion, & he, in turn, is drawn into her mysterious world. As his family recedes into the background, her stirring tales of the Hopi & the Arizona desert become the only salve to his despondent soul.
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Afghanistan expert Seth G. Jones watched as American optimism evaporated after the Taliban defeat in 2001; by 2005, a new ”war of a thousand cuts” had brought Afghanistan to its knees. With new research on insurgencies & declassified US government documents, Jones shows how the siphoning of resources to Iraq left NATO forces in Afghanistan ineffectual & without support. Through interviews with prominent figures, including ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad & commander Karl Eikenberry, Jones explains how a growing sanctuary for insurgents in Pakistan & a collapsing government in Kabul were a catalyst for the Taliban resurgence. Examining what has & has not worked so far, Jones argues that the US must take a radically new approach to the war if it is to avoid the disastrous fate that has befallen every world power to enter the region. With a new afterword. ...

By turns fascinating, funny, & horrifying, this is Nick Gordon`s account of more than 10 years spent in the Amazonian forests as a wildlife filmmaker, snorting ground-up seeds with the local shaman, building an artificial tarantula habitat to film the furry monsters mating, & killing & eating a two-foot snake. ...

One of the most impressive of all Victorian scientists but also a marvelous writer, Bates' (1825-1892) account of his years in the upper reaches of the Amazon is almost too good to be true
- a great monument to human inquisitiveness as he battles great hoards of malevolent reptiles & insects in his quest for ever more obscure specimens on ever more narrow & creeper-choked tributaries. Great Journeys allows readers to travel both around the planet & back through the centuries
- but also back into ideas & worlds frightening, ruthless & cruel in different ways from our own. Few reading experiences can begin to match that of engaging with writers who saw astounding things: great civilizations, walls of ice, violent & implacable jungles, deserts & mountains, & multitudes of birds & flowers new to science. Reading these books is to see the world afresh, to rediscover a time when many cultures were quite strange to each other, where legends & stories were treated as facts & in which so much was still to be discovered.

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Stifled by the torpor of colonial South Africa & trapped in a web of reciprocal oppression, a lonely sheep farmer seeks comfort in the arms of a black concubine. But when his embittered spinster daughter Magda feels shamed, this lurch across the racial divide marks the end of a tenuous feudal peace. As she dreams madly of bloody revenge, Magda`s consciousness starts to drift & the line between fact & the workings of her excited imagination becomes blurred. What follows is the fable of a woman`s passionate, obsessed & violent response to an Africa that will not heed her. ...