Category Archives: Travel Guides
The Ladies` Paradise
The Ladies` Paradise (Au Bonheur des Dames) recounts the spectacular development of the modern department store in late nineteenth century Paris. The store is a symbol of capitalism, of the modern city, and of the bourgeois family; it is emblematic of consumer culture and the changes in sexual attitudes and class relations taking place at
The Masterpiece
The Masterpiece is the tragic story of Claude Lantier, an ambitious and talented young artist from the provinces who has come to conquer Paris and is conquered by the flaws in his own genius. While his boyhood friend Pierre Sandoz becomes a successful novelist, Claude`s originality is mocked at the Salon and turns gradually into
On the Ocean: The Mediterranean and the Atlantic from prehistory to AD 1500
For humans the sea is, and always has been, an alien environment. Ever moving and ever changing in mood, it is a place without time, in contrast to the land which is fixed and scarred by human activity giving it a visible history. While the land is familiar, even reassuring, the sea is unknown and
Travel Writing 1700-1830
`How is the mind agitated and bewildered, at being thus, as it were, placed on the borders of a new world!` – William Bartram `Thus you see, dear sister, the manners of mankind do not differ so widely as our voyage writers would have us believe.` – Mary Wortley Montagu With widely varied motives –
Disrupt and Deny: Spies, Special Forces, and the Secret Pursuit of British Foreign Policy
British leaders use spies and Special Forces to interfere in the affairs of others discreetly and deniably. Since 1945, MI6 has spread misinformation designed to divide and discredit targets from the Middle East to Eastern Europe and Northern Ireland. It has instigated whispering campaigns and planted false evidence on officials working behind the Iron Curtain,
A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and the Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
In 1773, James Boswell made a long-planned journey across the Scottish Highlands with his English friend Samuel Johnson; the two spent more than a hundred days together. Their tour of the Hebrides resulted in two books, A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775), a kind of locodescriptive ethnography and Johnson`s most important work
Pere Goriot
This is the tragic story of a father whose obsessive love for his two daughters leads to his financial and personal ruin. It is set against the background of a whole society driven by social ambition and lust for money. The detailed descriptions of both affluence and squalor in the Paris of 1819 are an
The Rome We Have Lost
For a thousand years, Rome was enshrined in myth and legend as the Eternal City. No Grand Tour would be complete without a visit to its ruins. But from 1870 all that changed. A millennium ended as its solitary moonlit ruins became floodlit monuments on traffic islands, and its perimeter shifted from the ancient nineteen-kilometre
Geopolitics: A Very Short Introduction
Geopolitics is a slippery term. From great power politics and speculation about resource scrambles, to everyday encounters and objects such as smart phones, it affects citizens, corporations, international bodies, social movements, and governments. Geopolitics is far more than simply the impact of geographical features such as rivers, mountains, and climate on political developments. Geography matters
The First World War: A Very Short Introduction
By the time the First World War ended in 1918, eight million people had died in what had been perhaps the most apocalyptic episode the world had known. This Very Short Introduction provides a concise and insightful history of the `Great War`, focusing on why it happened, how it was fought, and why it had
French Tales
French Tales is a collection of twenty-two stories, each related to a region of France and translated by Helen Constantine. This selection of extracts gives the reader a panorama of French society and culture from Brittany to Corsica, evocating different matters such as marriage, the First World War, homelessness, house buying, childhood, honour-killing… Stories are
The Mabinogion
`I cannot be killed indoors,` he said, `nor out of doors; I cannot be killed on horseback, nor on foot.` `Well,` she said, `how can you be killed?` Celtic mythology, Arthurian romance, and an intriguing interpretation of British history – these are just some of the themes embraced by the anonymous authors of the eleven
The Oxford Companion to Wine
Published in 1994 to worldwide acclaim, the first edition of Jancis Robinson`s seminal volume immediately attained legendary status, winning every major wine book award including the Glenfiddich and Julia Child/IACP awards, as well as writer and woman of the year accolades for its editor on both sides of the Atlantic. Combining meticulously-researched fact with refreshing
Cheats and Deceits: How Animals and Plants Exploit and Mislead
In nature, trickery and deception are widespread. Animals and plants mimic other objects or species in the environment for protection, trick other species into rearing their young, lure prey to their death, and deceive potential mates for reproduction. Cuckoos lay eggs carefully matched to their host`s own clutch. Harmless butterflies mimic the wing patterning of
Born in the GDR: Living in the Shadow of the Wall
The changes that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 were particularly dramatic for East Germans. With the German Democratic Republic effectively taken over by West Germany in the reunification process, nothing in their lives was immune from change and upheaval: from the way they voted, the newspapers they read, to the
Shakespeare`s Comedies: A Very Short Introduction
From The Two Gentlemen of Verona in the early 1590s to The Two Noble Kinsmen at the end of his career around 1614, Shakespeare wrote at least eighteen plays that can be called `comedies`: a far higher number than that for any other genre in which he wrote. In this Very Short Introduction, Bart Van
Modern Italy: A Very Short Introduction
The history of modern Italy is characterized by recurrent cultural and political projects of modernity, rejuvenation, and regeneration; projects which often had their roots in a widespread dissatisfaction with social and political reality, and perceived moral corruption. The Risorgimento, the movement leading to Italian Unification in 1861, explicitly linked the quest for national unity to
Greek Oxford Learner`s Pocket Dictionary
An invaluable pocket dictionary for Greek-speaking learners of English.
Paris Street Tales
Paris Street Tales is the third volume of a trilogy of translated stories set in Paris. The previous two are Paris Tales, in which each story is associated with one of the twenty arrondissements, and Paris Metro Tales, in which the twenty-two stories are related to a trip round the Paris Metro. This new volume
Waverley
`the most romantic parts of this narrative are precisely those which have a foundation in fact` Edward Waverley, a young English soldier in the Hanoverian army, is sent to Scotland where he finds himself caught up in events that quickly transform from the stuff of romance into nightmare. His character is fashioned through his experience
