What turned Adolf Hitler, a relatively normal and apparently unexceptional young man, into the very personification of evil? To answer this question, acclaimed historian Brigitte Hamann has turned to
A century before the emergence of its cousin, the Sicilian Mafia, the criminal organization known as “The Camorra” was establishing a deadly grip on Naples and Campania. Today, their influence is as s
The magical qualities of stained glass have an enduring appeal, but church windows tend to be ignored as a form of creative and artistic expression. How to Look at Stained Glass is a fresh, unstuffy g
For centuries, the food and culinary delights of the Byzantine empire - centred on Constantinople - have captivated the west, although it appeared that very little information had been passed down to
Written just after the Second World War, Perseus in the Wind (named after the constellation) is perhaps the most personal, and haunting, of all Freya Stark's writings. She muses on the seasons, the ef
Scattered in a crescent in the sparkling waters of the Aegean, the islands of the Sporades are known to Greek fishermen as "the gates of the wind." It was to this unspoilt archipelago that Michael Car
Egypt’s belle epoque was a period of incredible extravagance during which the Khedive Ismail’s Cairo became the mirror image, both architecturally and socially, of decadent Paris. The glamour and hedo
A goldsmith’s daughter who eludes the Prince of Darkness, three wandering brothers born from a walnut tree, the Princess of Fantasistan, the case of the Shah’s lost ruby ring, the leopard
This is the story of two of the most heroic, and controversial, figures in archaeology: Heinrich Schliemann, who discovered the remains of Troy, and Arthur Evans who unearthed the great city of King M
One of the most famous and tortured romances in history—between Elizabeth I, Queen of England, and Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex—began in 1587, when she was 53 and he was 19. Their passionate affair
Though steeped in a rich and ancient past, Calabria had been lost from view when Norman Douglas visited in the early 1900s. Within Douglas’s vibrant account of his adventures is woven the rich
This pioneering book considers the culinary cultures of the Middle East in a variety of contexts. The contributors discuss various aspects of historical and contemporary processes, including likely or
