When Freya Stark travelled along the western coast of Turkey in 1952 she met only one other tourist. Today, this region is the most popular & well-travelled in the country, but to travel with Stark
- whose aim was to `create a guide-book in time`
- is to experience Turkey in a richer & more inspiring way than any modern guide or history can provide. In the ruins & vanished cities of Ionia lay the record of human history
- of what, Stark believed, made us what we are today. Her longing to know more, to unearth the living from the wreckage of the past & to discover the ingredients that shaped the ancient world drove her forward. With Herodotus as her travelling companion, she began her quest in Smyrna & traced a route through the ancient cities of Asia Minor, which were haunted by echoes of Odysseus & Alexander the Great & by the poets & philosophers, musicians & mathematicians who flourished in this world. Wandering beyond the boundaries of travel, Stark entered into the soul of ancient Ionia, examining the ever-present tension between East & West & the elements of religion, society & commerce that forged the culture of a civilisation.A journey through the ancient world that resonates in the modern, Freya Stark`s ” Ionia” is travel writing at its most elegant & history at its most dynamic
- a powerful & beautifully-rendered classic of twentieth-century literature.