An illumination of the life of diplomat Roger Casement.At the time of his execution for treason in 1916, few were aware who Roger Casement was or what he represented. Since then, he has been lauded for his investigations into Belgian brutality in the Congo Free State and human rights abuses in the Peruvian rubber industry, but much else about him has remained obscured behind speculation about his sexuality and secret Irish revolutionary activity while in service of...

He could tell you things! Things I've tried to forget; thing I never did know." Joseph Conrad "…his was a heroic nature. I should like to write upon him subtly, so that his enemies would think I was with them till they finished my book and rose from reading it to call him a hero. He has the appeal of a broken archangel." T.E. Lawrence British Consul Roger Casement was knighted in 1911 for his investigations into the genocide of trival peoples in the Congo Free State and Amazon rainforest. ...

He could tell you things! Things I've tried to forget; thing I never did know." Joseph Conrad "…his was a heroic nature. I should like to write upon him subtly, so that his enemies would think I was with them till they finished my book and rose from reading it to call him a hero. He has the appeal of a broken archangel." T.E. Lawrence British Consul Roger Casement was knighted in 1911 for his investigations into the genocide of trival peoples in the Congo Free State and Amazon rainforest. ...

The essays in this collection make up the first study of “dropping out” of late state socialism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. From Leningrad intellectuals and Berlin squatters to Bosnian Muslim madrassa students and Romanian yogis, groups and individuals across the Eastern Bloc rejected mainstream socialist culture. In the process, multiple drop-out cultures were created, with their own spaces, music, values, style, slang, ideology and networks. Under socialism, this phenomenon w...

One Bold Deed of Open Treason describes the astonishing journey by Roger Casement to Germany in 1914, via New York and Norway. Arriving into Berlin under a false identity, Casement entered a space of conspiracy and subterfuge. Through his vivid and gripping diary entries, a picture emerges of a man caught in the crossfire of international events and spiralling towards a tragic denouement.In recording his daily thoughts, emotions and movements, Casement chronicles his despair at the...

The masterpiece of travel writing that revolutionized the genre and made its author famous overnightAn exhilarating look at a place that still retains the exotic mystery of a far-off, unseen land, Bruce Chatwin’s exquisite account of his journey through Patagonia teems with evocative descriptions, remarkable bits of history, and unforgettable anecdotes. Fueled by an unmistakable lust for life and adventure and a singular gift for storytelling, Chatwin treks through...

First published in the 1950s, this is a classic account of the discovery in 1911 of the lost city of Machu Picchu.In 1911 Hiram Bingham, a pre-historian with a love of exotic destinations, set out to Peru in search of the legendary city of Vilcabamba, capital city of the last Inca ruler, Manco Inca. With a combination of doggedness and good fortune he stumbled on the perfectly preserved ruins of Machu Picchu perched on a cloud-capped ledge 2000 feet above the torre...

An explorer searches the Peruvian Andes for a lost ruin in "a gem of a book [that] transcends the travel writing genre" with fascinating Inca history ( Los Angeles Times).A New York Times Notable BookWith the backdrop of the ever-intriguing Andes mountains, Hugh Thomson explores the intoxicating history of the Inca people and their heartland. The author, an acclaimed documentary filmmaker and explorer, expertly weaves accoun...

For centuries, the Andes have caught the imagination of travelers, inspiring fear and wonder. The groundbreaking scientist Alexander von Humboldt claimed that ""everything here is grander and more majestic than in the Swiss Alps, the Pyrenees, the Carpathians, the Apennines, and all other mountains I have known."" Rivaled in height only by the Himalayas and stretching more than 4,500 miles, the sheer immensity of the Andes is matched by its concentration of radically contrasting scenery an...

Patagonia is the ultimate landscape of the mind. Like Siberia and the Sahara, it has become a metaphor for nothingness and extremity. Its frontiers have stretched beyond the political boundaries of Argentina and Chile to encompass an evocative idea of place. A vast triangle at the southern tip of the New World, this region of barren steppes, soaring peaks and fierce winds was populated by small tribes of hunter-gatherers and roaming nomads when Ferdinand Magellan made landfall in 1520. A f...

Winner of the Phi Alpha Theta Best Subsequent Book AwardFinalist: Los Angeles Times Book PrizeThe captivating and definitive account of the most consequential natural disaster of modern times.On All Saints’ Day 1755, tremors from an earthquake measuring perhaps 9.0 (or higher) on the moment magnitude scale swept furiously from their origin along the Atlantic seabed toward the Iberian and African coasts. Directly in their path was Lisbon, then one of ...

From a Bancroft Prize-winning historian, the gripping tale of a shipwrecked Spaniard who walked across America in the sixteenth century.**“Once you start this book, it's nearly impossible to put it down.” -**Washington PostIn 1527, a mission set out from Spain to colonize Florida. But the expedition went horribly wrong: Delayed by a hurricane and knocked off course by a colossal error of navigation, the mission quickly became a des...