Recently in History Category
One of the events I went to as part of the British Museum's exhibition on Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient World was the screening of the 1979 documentary Khyber. The director, Andre Singer, recommended Cables from Kabul, and I treated myself to the hard cover edition.
It's a great book. Sherard Cowper-Coles was British Ambassador to Afghanistan from 2007 to 2009, and the Foreign Secretary's Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2009 to 2010 - roles that put him at the heart of Britain's diplomatic missions to AfPak during the War in Afghanistan during 2007 - 2010. In these memoirs he shares his first hand experience of the political and military developments of the time, and provides insights into key players, British, American and Afghan.
Amazon.co.uk link: Cables from Kabul: The Inside Story of the West's Afghanistan Campaign - Sherard Cowper-Coles
19 August 2011: All the more recommended, in light of today's attack on the British Council office in Kabul.
A great idea, but patchily delivered. I ended most of the very short chapters feeling we'd only discovered a few bare facts.
Maybe that's the point.
The end of the road for IB, and Tim Mackintosh-Smith, his 21st century shadow.
"It isn't the end, of course. As long as people read, and travel, and write, as long as readers take to the road then go home - whatever it is that home has become - to tell their stories, the journey never ends. It is both circular and linear, a double helix inscribing itself back into the past and forward into the future."Tim Mackintosh-Smith, p350
Amazon.co.uk link: Landfalls: On the Edge of Islam with Ibn Battutah - Tim Mackintosh-Smith
I bought this to read in advance of my trip to Libya.... and still haven't got through it all. I found it much more readable once I'd been through / to some of the places described in Hugh Clapperton's account, in particular the Fezzan. But not readable enough to finish.... and very disappointed that the quote used as the book's title continues ... "for camels...", making it sound rather less difficult and dangerous for human beings.
The autumn 2010 issue of The North Magazine includes a piece on Clapperton (page 36) and a photo of Ghat medina that I took on my trip (page 37) - just click on the bottom right hand cover of each emagazine page to turn to the next page.
Readable social history of 14th century England.
Amazon link: The Time Traveller's Guide to Mediaeval England - Ian Mortimer
Fascinating account of the life of Joseph Needham, a Cambridge academic biologist who became an authority on China and the history of it's culture and science; and an equally fascinating and unusual insight into China's jack knife social, political and cultural changes since the Second Sino-Japanese War.
A number of people I've met on my travels have raved about this book, so I finally got around to borrowing it from the library. It's very good, but no better than many other travelogues I've read.
Blook River is Daily Telegraph journalist Tim Butcher's account of his 2004 attempt to follow in the footsteps of Stanley (of "Dr Livingstone I presume?" fame). Having managed to reach the Congo, we follow Tim Butcher as he travels 1000s of miles from Lake Tanganyika to the River Congo and downriver to Muanda where it deluges into the Atlantic Ocean. En route there are adventures - some more hair raising than others - and Tim Butcher's accounts of the history of the Congo, the men who 'discovered' and 'explored' it, and those men and women who manage to live in that failed state today.
Amazon.co.uk link: Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart - Tim Butcher
Marvellous sequel to Travels with a Tangerine, with Tim and artist side kick Martin Yeoman, following in Ibn Battutah's footsteps through the Sultanates and Kingdoms of 14th century India.
Spendid travellers' tales told with many a lovely turn of phrase, and plenty of context - present day, historical and geographical.
I can't believe I have let The Hall of a Thousand Columns sit unread on my bookshelf since receiving it as my leaving present from Norton Rose, way back in 2005!
...and googling for Martin Yeoman has revealed:
"The third and final part of Tim Mackintosh-Smith's trilogy on the 14th-century Moroccan traveller Ibn Battutah will be published by John Murray in July 2010. Landfalls: On the Edge of Islam with Ibn Battutah follows the Arab wanderer's eccentric route from the Maldives to Andalusia via China and Timbuktu.
As with Tim's previous books, Martin's drawings will accompany the text, and the jacket will feature one of his paintings. Martin himself will make a guest appearance in the Chinese and Spanish chapters."
I can't wait!
Amazon.co.uk link: The Hall of a Thousand Columns - Tim Mackintosh-Smith
Bought second hand yonks ago (so long ago I can't even recall where), this relatively slim travelogue has sat languishing on my bookshelf alongside other books about places and eras I wished I'd been able to visit and record myself.
On the face of Mountains of Heaven looks as though it's going to be an annoying account, in the style of Eric Newby's A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, of a scion of the British Empire's boy's own adventure through the lands on the edge of empires.
But it's not. Half comprised of Charles Howard-Bury own edited version of his travel journals, with the remainder of the editing carried out by Marian Keane, Charles Howard-Bury does come across as an explorer-adventurer but one who is interested in the people, culture and wild life of the region; particularly the huntin', shootin' and fishin' opportunities on offer.
A man after my own "circular route" heart, his outbound journey took him from London to Russian Omsk, on a "cruise" along the river Irtish to Semipalatinsk and via the post roads of Siberia and the steppe, crossing from the Russian side to the Chinese side of the Tian Shan. He returned to London by way of Russian Turkestan and the Silk Road, taking in Tashkent, Samarkand (fascinating accounts of the Registan, Bibi Khanum mosque and Shah Zinda mausoleum) and Bokhara before crossing the Caspian, the Caucasus and finally the Black Sea before taking the train home from Constantinople.
He's in Central Asia at a tipping point. The British Empire is still going strong to the south, the pre-revolutionary Russian Tsars have expanded into the 'Stans of Central Asia and the nomadic Kazakh and Kyrgyz inhabitants of the steppe are shifting eastwards, into modern day Xinjiang only a year after the demise of the Qing dynasty and the province acceding in name to the Republic of China.
Less than 100 years later, my Central Asia experience was vastly different.
Isabella Bird's A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains and The Yangtze Valley and Beyond are still sitting on my bookshelf of travelogues to read, but Mountains of Heaven has finally (finally!) prompted me to pick up Tim Macintosh-Smith's The Hall of a Thousand Columns, which is proving to be another fantastic read. It's 1349 and Ibn Battuta is just about to head off to China.....
Amazon.co.uk link: Mountains of Heaven: Travel in the Tian Shan Mountains, 1913 - Charles Howard-Bury, edited by Marian Keaney
A bit heavy going if I'm honest, The Island of Lost Maps felt like it would have made a great magazine article, but had to be stretched too thin to make a book.
The two themes that run through the book are the history of maps and cartographic kleptomaniac Gilbert Bland who stole an unknown number of maps from university and city library collections across North America. There were a few points of interest: how tempting it is for collectors to break bound books because they can make more by selling off the individual maps than they can the whole; how some of the institutions that had maps stolen were/are reluctant to admit this for fear of highlighting how lax their security is (and how low on their list of expenditure library collections have sunk); but the main thrust is Harvey's own quest to find Gilbert Bland, which just wasn't that interesting to me.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Island of Lost Maps: A Story of Cartographic Crime
A fascinating account of the Armenian people - their history, language and lands.
Philip Marsden's personal quest to understand the Armenian dispora takes him from the Near/Middle Eastern lands of Turkey, Lebanon and Syria, along to the Eastern European lands of the Black Sea and finally into the Caucasus and modern-day Armenia.
Sounds a dry as dust? It isn't.
Amazon.co.uk: The Crossing Place: Journey Among the Armenians - Philip Marsden
Another book by a Western chap recounting experiences and encounters from his time living in a muslim country - this time Christopher de Bellaigue in Iran. It's a less engaging read than On the Road to Kandahar, but Christopher de Bellaigue still provides interesting insights into the day to day lives of a range of Iranians he has met.
Published in 2004, the book felt a little bit dated now. That said, it would have been good to read before my trip to Iran last year as the book provides easily digestible background on key figures such as Imam Husain, and 20th century events, ranging from the Russian and British influence, to the Islamic Revolution, to the Iran-Iraq war.
Amazon.co.uk: In the Rose Garden of the Martyrs: A Memoir of Iran - Christopher de Bellaigue
A two stage read, but one I'm glad I persevered with - especially once Peter Fleming and Eva Maillart's journey reached the far west of China, and headed over into the Hunza valley and into what is now Pakistan, what was then British India.
It's a fascinating account of China and the North West Frontier in the mid 1930s, complete with what now read as antiquated spellings and opinions/perspectives. The book tell of the seven months Fleming and Kini spent on the 3500 mile journey from Peking to Kashmir, travelling by camel, donkey, horse and foot during a wartorn time for the far flung provinces of the Chinese world - and with the final rumblings of the Great Game still sounding loudly in this remote part of the world where Russian, British and Chinese empires met. As the intrepid explorers travel further west, they travel through a desert region populated mainly by nomads and warlords who view themselves as having more in common with their fellow Tatar tribes of Central Asia than the Chinese holding power in Peking.
Next: tracking down Forbidden Journey for Ella Maillart's version! Maybe a read for this autumn's Central Asia Overland trip.....
Amazon.co.uk link: News from Tartary - Peter Fleming
Again, another book it's taken me years to pick up, principally because for a long time I thought - incorrectly - that the author was Lord Byron, the 18th century poet. My mistake, my loss.
The Road to Oxiana is an account by Robert Byron, a distant descendant, of his travels through the Middle East to Central Asia in 1933/1934 - close enough in time to Empire for the Great Game still be living memory, and for the key geopolitical units to include Persia and Sinkiang.
Whilst Byron's privileged background means that his accounts of the people he meets is coloured by the social norms of the time (which isn't always bad - there are some fantastic encounters with Governors and Ambassadors), he did get to see and explore some amazing locations and architectural gems that are now either lost or out of reach. That said, I see that Wild Frontiers are running trips to Afghanistan, so perhaps, one day, I too will get to visit Herat.
There are wonderful photos too, some of places I have been lucky enough to visit and it's fascinating to see what has changed in the intervening 80 years, for example in Soltaniyeh Yazd and Isfahan.
For accounts of travels in the region in the last 20th/early 21st century, read:
* Shadow of the Silk Road - Colin Thubron
* The Carpet Wars - Christopher Kremmer
* The Places in Between - Rory Stewart
* Neither East Nor West: One Woman's Journey Through the Islamic Republic of Iran - Christiane Bird
Amazon.co.uk link: The Road to Oxiana - Robert Byron
A spur of the moment purchase at the St Giles Cripplegate summer fete, this book is a gem.
I must confess a general ignorance about Korea, other than random facts such as "It's the sticky out bit between China/Russia and Japan", "It is split into North Korea ("baddies") and South Korea ("goodies")" and "M*A*S*H was set in the Korean War (and not the Vietnam War as a lot of people assume)". Having read Simon Winchester's account of his walk from the island of Cheju in the far south to Panmunjom in the demilitarised zone that forms the frontier between North and South Korea, I feel rather more enlightened, and wondering how best to get my head around developments since 1988 when this book was written.
The route was inspired by the journey made by shipwrecked Dutch sailors in 1688, who became the first Westerners to enter and leave the Kingdom of Korea. As he travels, Winchester provides details of the history, culture and beliefs of the people of Korea since then, and develops insights into how these enabled them to survive the 20th century events of invasion, international, cold and then civil war and to create a thriving economy (Daewoo, Hyundai, Samsung), in the South at least.
Winchester is quite clear that he would have loved to have continued his walk all the way through the demilitarised zone and gained comparable exposure to the people and places of the North. For my part, reading his account has given me the idea of adding another destination(s) to my list (as Catherine observed: going for another country in the Axis of Evil).
Amazon.co.uk link: Korea: A Walk Through the Land of Miracles - Simon Winchester
Back to history-based travel writing after my recent detours into mediaeval and (almost) modern history, with Andrew Eames' account of the mid-life Middle Eastern travels of Agatha Christie managing to mirror Colm Toibin's biography of a famous author theme.
I thoroughly enjoyed this account of Andrew Eames' journey from Berkshire to Baghdad. Tracing Agatha Christie's own travels on the Orient Express in its heyday (and minus murders), Eames takes us on an increasingly adventurous itinery from British suburbia through continental Europe into the Balkans through Turkey to Syria and finally across the desert and into pre-war Iraq. I realised that his trip to Iraq was with Hinterland Travel - run by a knowledgable and reassuring chap called Geoff, with whom I had an interesting chat at a Destinations travel exhibition years ago.
At the same time he tells the fascinating story of Agatha Christie's life, from her failed first marriage to her happier second marriage and archaeological digs in the then British Mandate of Mesopotamia. I swiftly revised my Miss Marple image ....
Amazon.co.uk link: The 8.55 to Baghdad - Andrew Eames
I wasn't too sure I was in the mood for an erudite biography of Henry James, particularly as I've never read any of his novels (although I watched the film version of The Portriat of a Lady, I was not inspired to read the novel), but Colm Toibin's lightly fictionalised account of Henry James' life during the final years of the 19th century was a joy to read.
This novel brings to life James' family and friendships, his American upbringing at the time of the Civil War and the ways he used his novels to provide alternate lives for the people he loved, and for his relationships with them. I put down this book with a feeling of immense sadness arising from James' inability to allow himself to recognise or accept the love he felt for others and they for him.
Amazon.co.uk link: The Master - Colm Toibin
A hefty hardback which contains a great tale of two chaps on the trail of Prester John, the mythical and mystical mediaeval priest-king who, legend had it, ruled over a Christian kingdom located somewhere in the mysterious orient, beyond the muslim-controlled lands of the Middle East and North Africa, and with wealth beyond compare.
In 2000 Nicholas Jubber persuaded his mate Mike to accompany him on a mission to follow in the footsteps of Master Philip, a mediaeval physician, who in 1177 was instructed by Pope Alexander III to carry a letter to Prester John asking for help in Christendom's Crusade in the Holy Land.
We follow Nick and Mike's journey from Venice around the Eastern Mediterranean and the still-troubled lands of the Middle East and thence into North Africa and south, through the Sudan and into Ethiopia. En route we learn how history, religion and current affairs continue to combine in much the same way as they did over 800 years ago when Master Philip and Pope Alexander were exchanging letters and progress reports.
A very readable book that ticks the boxes for travel writing and mediaeval+modern history. If you like William Dalrymple, you'll like this (and vice versa).
Buy it: Amazon link
In Xanadu turned out to be an excellent choice as my sole LHR departure lounge purchase. Having finished In the Company of Cheerful Ladies in Peshawar, I moved on to William Dalrymple's account of his journey from Cambridge to China, accompanied by the no nonsense Laura as far as Lahore, and subsequently by ex-girlfriend Louisa.
Following as far as possible in the footsteps of Marco Polo, William and his ladies travelled from Cyprus to Israel to Syria to Turkey to Iran to Pakistan and thence across China to Beijing. Fascinating, with history and architecture interwoven with pen portraits of people they meet en route - and interesting to see/hear the young William Dalrymple. My undergraduate summer holiday activities were nowhere near so adventurous.
Buy it: Amazon link
Another great book about another culture and another part of the world. Chris Bird's book tells the twin tales of his family's experiences of living in the Caucasus and his experiences reporting on current affairs in the region over the course of 3 (4?) years at the end of the 20th century - notably the various wars in and about Chechnya. The personal descriptions are supplemented by Chris Bird's own account and analysis of the region's history, and the complexities of Chechnya, the Caucasus, and indeed many of the republics that formed the USSR, Russia in particular.
I'd love to know how Chris Bird is getting on with his career change - the book says that he was studying medicine in London at the time of publication.
Buy it: Amazon link
I thoroughly enjoyed this account of the various Christian communities that live(d) in the Middle East. It's fascinating to learn how many of the regions we think of as muslim have older Christian cultures (plural), and for how long these societies have lived together in the Middle East. William Dalrymple does not shy away from looking at why many of the Christian cultures are slowly but surely disappearing, but neither does he lay blame in an indiscriminate fashion as he travels around the countries that form the eastern and southern borders of the Mediterranean Sea.
A bit strange reading it on a small island in the middle of the South Atlantic.
Buy it: Amazon link
I chanced upon this in one of Hereford's second hand bookshops (Hay doesn't have them all!!) and took it with me to Yalta, which is in the Crimea where Neal Ascherson's excellent anthropological, historical and politcal account of the Black Sea begins.
As Hazel and I visited the greek ruins at Chersonesus (now a seaside surburb of Sevastopol), the Khan's Palace at Bakchisarai, and the Genoese fortress and Soviet submarine base at Balaclava, and the harbours and hills of Sevastopol, the book offered additional backstory to the excellent information provided by Voyages Jules Verne's local guides.
The book is broader in the context than simply the Crimea; Neal Ascherson considers the majority of the Black Sea coast, and it is a fascinating part of the world, a real melting pot of peoples for millennia, and only in very recent history has it become perceived as a frontier between 'east' and 'west', 'barbarian' and 'civilisation'.
Buy it: Amazon link
The first of my post-holiday reading (so watch the rate of consumption drop off!), and I decided to continue the travel theme. I've long been interested in the life, times and travels of Ibn Battutah, but I was put off by the rather dry academic texts which were all I could find....... until I discovered Tim Mackintosh-Smith's tales his own 20th century travels in the footsteps of this travel-bug from Tangiers.
Starting from IB's Moroccan homeland, in the far west of the arabian, muslim lands, Tim follows his trail to Mecca, with a short excursion to the Crimea. This sidetrip within the then muslim world made for interesting reading as H and I head off to Yalta at the end of September. In particular it highlighted the fact that the Crimea spent a substantial chunk of time as a Khanate, having been settled by a segment of the Mongol Hordes that converted to Islam. Not what you expect of part of the Ukraine....
Fascinating stuff, told with human insight by Yemen-based Tim Mackintosh-Smith. I'm very glad I've got Norton Rose's leaving gift, Hall of a Thousand Columns: Hindustan to Malabar with Ibn Battutah , ready and waiting on the bookshelf to provide coverage of further voyages, ever eastwards.
Buy it:
Amazon link
Easy-reading account of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, and the contribution made by the mysterious Dr William Chester Minor to this Herculean task. It is all the more fascinating, and sad, given that Dr Minor carried out all his work from his cell in Broadmoor (another Victorian innovation, then, as now, Broadmoor was an "Asylum for the Criminally Insane") where he was paying a life sentence for murder.
Buy it: Amazon link