For more than 10, 000 years, cities have been the sites of inspiration, myth & mystery. From Peru`s Machu Picchu to the legendary Troy & Babylon, this book follows the rise & fall of 28 of the world`s most fascinating lost cities, including the powerful seats of empires & renowned centres of learning. Lavishly illustrated, Joel Levy`s book brings past cities & cultures vividly to life & provides the reader with an invaluable insight into these often forgotten places. Each location is described in evocative detail & is accompanied by contact details, maps & travel information to help readers plan visits to the sites. ...

Ancient civilisations in Vietnam, the lost cities of the Amazon, the cities & towns of humankind have fought for space against the overwhelming power of nature. We think we`ve mastered it, but discoveries across the world show abandoned cities, their proud buildings now flooded, overtaken by the forests, nature taking back what once was its own, with the slow, relentlessness of time. But there are modern places too, towns built by corrupt local officials that were never occupied, amusement parks closed due to terrible tragedy, settlements sinking ineluctably into the mud, cities destroyed by radiation, these are the remnants of a generation, an entire society wiped from the earth, leaving only dismembered traces of memory. This exotic, powerful new book evokes the eerie, haunted places that retain small touches of humanity: a car with only one wheel, a battered doll, torn shirts on a washing line, a broken ferris wheel, all of them are shattered dreams that dwell now only in the imagination. ...

In 1666 London was devastated by the Great Fire, which gutted over 13, 000 houses, over eighty parish churches & St Paul`s Cathedral. Bob Jones has set out to discover the original structures & streets that survived the Great Fire & can still be seen today. This book maps, describes & illustrates what remains of the City of the Black Death, the Peasants` Revolt, the Reformation, the Civil War, & the Great Plague; the City of Chaucer & Shakespeare & Pepys. Discover the Roman ruins buried beneath Cannon Street Station, the seven parish churches that survived the blaze, the drinking establishments still open for business, & much more. ...

First published in the 1950s, The Lost City of the Incas by Hiram Bingham is the amazing account of the impressive discovery in 1911 of the lost city of Machu Picchu. Re-published now with an introduction by Hugh Thomson, this story is as fascinating as the ancient Incas civilization itself. Much of the wild country of the eastern Peruvian Andes was still unknown when Hiram Bingham, a pre-historian with a love for exotic destinations, set out to explore the area in search of the legendary city of Vilcabamba, capital city of the last Inca ruler, Manco Inca. In 1911, with a combination of doggedness & good fortune, he stumbled on the perfectly preserved ruins of a magnificent Inca city perched on a cloud-capped ledge 2000 ft above the torrent of the Urumbamba River. The buildings were of exquisitely carved white granite blocks, each higher than a man. Bingham had not, as it turned out, found Vilcabamba, but he had nevertheless made one of the most astonishing discoveries of the early days of the twentieth century, & one that was to make him famous: Machu Picchu. Spread out across a high mountain ridge, Machu Picchu had managed to survive the Spanish Conquest without being detected, preserving untouched some of the finest Inca architecture in existence. However, Bingham’s achievement did not end there. In the space of one short season he went onto discover two more Inca cities: Vitcos, where one of the last Inca Emperors was assassinated, & another settlement buried deep down the cloud-forest in the jungle. The Lost City of the Incas, written in 1948, is a distillation of the many articles & books which he wrote on these fabulous discoveries. It

Includes:: Hiram Bingham’s original photographs.

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stunning, timely, & absolutely mesmerizing, Daniel Alarcón`s “ Lost City Radio” questions war & its meaning: from the devastating ...

Pick up an old stamp album & flick through it. You`ll find a host of exotic & unfamiliar names: Cyrenaica, Fernando Poo, Fiume, North Ingria, Obock, Priamur, Stellal&, Tuva, Wenden
- distant lands, vanished territories, lost countries. Do they still exist? If not, where were they? What happened to them? Lost Countries goes in search of the truth about these & many other amazing places. Stuart Laycock & Chris West unearth stories of many kinds. Some take you to long-disappeared empires; others throw light on today`s most pressing conflicts. Lost Countries invites you to enjoy them all, in a collection of historical narratives as broad & enticing as an old stamp album that you`ve just discovered in the attic.
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Devon's colourful past may still be visible in its street names & pub signs, but in fact much of the region's history has been obliterated
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What happened to Edinburgh`s once notorious but picturesque Tolbooth Prison? Where was the Black Turnpike, once a dominant building in the town? Why has one of the New Town designer`s major layouts been all but obliterated? What else has been lost in Edinburgh? From Edinburgh`s mean beginnings
- `wretched accommodation, no comfortable houses, no soft beds`, visiting French knights complained in 1341
- it went on to attract some of the world`s greatest architects to design & build & shape a unique city. But over the centuries many of those fine buildings have gone. Some were destroyed by invasion & civil strife, some simply collapsed with old age & neglect, & others were swept away in the `improvements` of the nineteenth century. Yet more fell to the developers` swathe of destruction in the twentieth century. Much of the medieval architecture vanished in the Old Town, Georgian Squares were attacked, Princes Street ruined, old tenements razed in huge slum clearance drives, & once familiar & much loved buildings vanished. The changing pattern of industry, social habits, health service, housing & road systems all took their toll; not even the city wall was immune. The buildings which stood in the way of what was deemed progress are the heritage of Lost Edinburgh. In this informative & stimulating book. Hamish Coghill sets out to trace many of the lost buildings & find out why they were doomed. Lavishly illustrated, ” Lost Edinburgh” is a fascinating insight into an ever-changing cityscape.

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Lost England records the greatest transition in England`s history as the longstanding practices of a largely rural economy shifted focus into towns & cities: astonishing photographs give the reader access to the streets, living & working spaces of the growing cities as well as the daily routines of rural life. ...

In this sweeping & richly illustrated history, S. Frederick Starr tells the fascinating but largely unknown story of Central Asia`s medieval enlightenment through the eventful lives & astonishing accomplishments of its greatest minds--remarkable figures who built a bridge to the modern world. Because nearly all of these figures wrote in Arabic, they were long assumed to have been Arabs. In fact, they were from Central Asia--drawn from the Persianate & Turkic peoples of a region that today extends from Kazakhstan southward through Afghanistan, & from the easternmost province of Iran through Xinjiang, China. Lost Enlightenment recounts how, between the years 800 & 1200, Central Asia led the world in trade & economic development, the size & sophistication of its cities, the refinement of its arts, &, above all, in the advancement of knowledge in many fields. Central Asians achieved signal breakthroughs in astronomy, mathematics, geology, medicine, chemistry, music, social science, philosophy, & theology, among other subjects. They gave algebra its name, calculated the earth`s diameter with unprecedented precision, wrote the books that later defined European medicine, & penned some of the world`s greatest poetry. One scholar, working in Afghanistan, even predicted the existence of North & South America--five centuries before Columbus. Rarely in history has a more impressive group of polymaths appeared at one place & time. No wonder that their writings influenced European culture from the time of St. Thomas Aquinas down to the scientific revolution, & had a similarly deep impact in India & much of Asia. Lost Enlightenment chronicles this forgotten age of achievement, seeks to explain its rise, & explores the competing theories about the cause of its eventual demise. Informed by the latest scholarship yet written in a lively & accessible style, this is a book that will surprise general readers & specialists alike. ...