Few sights can reawaken memories of happy holidays of yesteryear as vividly as the superb railway posters that were so much ...

Between the introduction of the marine turbine & the post-war challenges of air travel & revolutionary cargo-handling procedures, the period covered by this book witnesses a culmination in the development of the merchant ship. The great transatlantic liners, the fast packets & simple tramp steamers, for example, achieved a form of perfection that many regard as classic. These & many other types are described & analyzed in detail in this book. ...

First published in 1949, ” The Golden Apples” is an acutely observed, richly atmospheric portrayal of small town life in Morgana, Mississippi. There`s Snowdie, who has to bring up her twin boys alone after her husb&, King Maclain, disappears one day, discarding his hat on the banks of the Big Black. There`s Loch Morrison, convalescing with malaria, who watches from his bedroom window as wayward Virgie Rainey meets a sailor in the vacant house opposite. Meanwhile, Miss Eckhart the piano teacher, grieving the loss of her most promising pupil, tries her hand at arson. Eudora Welty has a fine ear for dialogue & describes each of the characters in incisive, haunting prose. `...in the South, ` she says, `everybody stays busy talking all the time
- they`re not sorry for you to overhear their tales`. Welty deftly picks up their stories to create an unflinching potrait of everyday life in the American South & offers a deeply moving look at human nature.
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The Golden Atlas is a spectacular visual history of exploration & cartography, a treasure chest of adventures from the chronicles of global discovery, illustrated with a selection of the most beautiful maps ever created. The book reveals how the world came to be known, featuring a magnificent gallery of exceptionally rare h&-coloured antique maps, paintings & engravings, many of which can only be found in the author`s collection. Arranged chronologically, the reader is taken on a breathtaking expedition through Ancient Babylonian geography & Marco Polo`s journey to the Mongol Khan on to buccaneers ransacking the Caribbean & the voyages of seafarers such as Captain Cook & fearless African pathfinders. Their stories are told in an engaging & compelling style, bringing vividly to life a motley collection of heroic explorers, treasure-hunters & death-dealing villains
- all of them accompanied by eye-grabbing illustrations from rare maps, charts & manuscripts. The Golden Atlas takes you back to a world of darkness & peril, placing you on storm-lashed ships, frozen wastelands & the shores of hostile territories to see how the lines were drawn to form the shape of the modern world. The author`s previous book, The Phantom Atlas, was a critically acclaimed international bestseller, described by Jonathan Ross as `a spectacular, enjoyable & eye-opening read` & this new book is sure to follow suit.
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” If you do not have the power to overthrow the rule of oppression, inform others of the oppression.” Persian proverb Questions about Iran`s 1979 Islamic Revolution shape The Golden Cage while the answers shed light on Iran`s current events & tell us why it strives for nuclear energy, chants ” Death to Israel” & claims to be the most powerful force in the Middle East & Muslim world. History perhaps is best described through life stories we each can hold dearly. The Golden Cage is one such story about three brothers whom the author knew through their sister, Pari, a childhood friend. Each brother subscribes to a different political ideology that tears Iran & their lives apart. As Pari observes, her brothers live deluded lives in golden cages of ideology. These words mark the beginning of this story, illuminating the multifaceted, oppressive Iran of today & the past. ...

A loving look at some of the most beautiful motor yachts in the world, beginning in 1830 with the first private steam boat to the modern gas & diesel boats. Ross Mac Taggart documents here a world which has largely vanished, a world where small fortunes were spent tastefully. ...

She wrote 23 letters describing her adventures to her sister Hennie in Scotl&, & named the collection The Golden Chersonese after the ancient name given to the Malay Peninsula by the Greek scholar, Ptolemy. Her detailed descriptions of the Malay Peninsula in the 1870s are in startling contrast to present-day Malaysia & Singapore, & provide a fascinating account of many aspects of the region, including the people, culture, landscapes, & wildlife, all described with the Victorian stiff upper lip typical of her time. ...

Isabella Bird, an Englishwoman whose extensive travels & writings earned her the first female membership of the Royal Geographical Society, visited Malaya, Singapore, Indo-China & Hong Kong in 1879. She wrote 23 letters describing her adventures to her sister Hennie in Scotl&, & named the collection The Golden Chersonese after the ancient name given to the Malay Peninsula by the Greek scholar, Ptolemy. Her detailed descriptions of the Malay Peninsula in the 1870s are in startling contrast to present-day Malaysia & Singapore, & provide a fascinating account of many aspects of the region, including the people, culture, landscapes, & wildlife, all described with the Victorian stiff upper lip typical of her time. Stanfords Travel Classics feature some of the finest historical travel writing in the English language, with authors hailing from both sides of the Atlantic. Every title has been reset in a contemporary typeface to create a series that every lover of fine travel literature will want to collect & keep. ...

The Golden Door takes its title from Emma Lazarus’ poignant poem, inscribed at the feet of the Statue of Liberty, read by every American schoolchild. The sonnet famously articulates the American dream of creating a haven for the world’s beleaguered, exhausted & oppressed, rejecting the ‘storied pomp’ & values of more ‘ancient lands’. In this passionate defence of America, both what she is & what she represents, Britain’s most famous restaurant critic & columnist A.A. Gill takes on European snobbery & disparagement of the American Dream & exposes the clichés & default prejudices which perpetuate it. Grappling with the ways in which the world’s perception of America changed between those two generation-defining moments, the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas in 1963, & the devastation of the twin towers in New York City on 11 September 2001, the book is as much about the things which Gill himself has always found likeable about the United States & its citizens. Clearly coming from a deeply personal place, these essays are very much about the disjunction between Gill’s expectations of a land of simpletons formed before he lived in the States, & the contradictory, elusive country & personal happiness he found whilst living both in New York & in the Kentucky mountains. Gill points out the hypocrisy of non-Americans attacking various facets of American politics or lifestyle whilst voraciously consuming her produce, whether in the form of dream, cinema or other commercial goods, & asks how exactly it came to happen that the optimistic promise of the 1970s America he knew & loved came to represent everything which the rest of the world’s liberal intellectuals set their opinions. The book is structured as a collection of linked essays based around specific places, each of which is “the home of” something, according to the famous boast of so many small town Welcome signs in America, be it a mountain, a mine, spotted pigs, a president, the world`s biggest ball of string or deepest hole. This is a journey on which Gill explores & deconstructs the mythologies America has spun about herself & those spun about her, & shows how these, taken together, make America, the home of everything. ...