Tourism History

In January 2012, having covered a Somali pirate trial in Hamburg for Spiegel Online International, Michael Scott Moore traveled to the Horn of Africa to write about piracy and ways to end it. In a terrible twist of fate, Moore himself was kidnapped and subsequently held captive by Somali pirates for 977 days. Yet Moore’s own struggle is only part of the story: The Desert and the Sea falls at the intersection of reportage, memoir, and history.

On January 17, 1913, alone and near starvation, Douglas Mawson, leader of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, was hauling a sledge to get back to base camp - the dogs were gone. Mawson plunged through a snow bridge, dangling over an abyss by the sledge harness. A line of poetry gave him the will to haul himself back to the surface. On February 8, when he staggered back to base, his features unrecognizable, the first teammate to reach him blurted out, "Which one are you?"

There is an ancient Chinese proverb that states, "Two tigers cannot share the same mountain." However, in East Asia, there are three tigers on that mountain: China, Japan, and Korea, and they have a long history of turmoil and tension with each other. In his latest entertaining and thought-provoking narrative travelogue, Michael Booth sets out to discover how deep, really, the enmity is between these three "tiger" nations and what prevents them from making peace.

In this landmark work on the Anasazi tribes of the Southwest, naturalist Craig Childs dives head-on into the mysteries of this vanished people. The various tribes that made up the Anasazi people converged on Chaco Canyon (New Mexico) during the 11th century to create a civilization hailed as "the Las Vegas of its day", a flourishing cultural center that attracted pilgrims from far and wide, and a vital crossroads of the prehistoric world. By the 13th century, however, Chaco's vibrant community had disappeared without a trace.

Richard Henry Dana called this book a "a voice from the sea". It had an influence on both Joseph Conrad and Herman Melville, both of whom sang its praises. Dana was a law student at Harvard College who decided, in 1834, to take a break from his studies in order to experience the "real world" by signing on as a common sailor for a two year voyage from Boston around Cape Horn to California. He kept a journal which he turned into a book after the voyage.

Propelled by a wish to reclaim the brilliant, chaotic, endlessly varied German civilization that the Nazis buried and ruined, and that so many Germans have worked to rebuild, Germania was recorded to enlighten us on serious topics, curiosities, and on the limits of language, the meaning of culture, and the pleasure of townscape.

On the morning of July 3, 1994, a misreported forest fire on Storm King Mountain in Colorado became one of the greatest tragedies in the annals of firefighting. In this dramatic reconstruction of the disaster and its aftermath, John N. MacLean tells the heroic and cautionary story of nature at its most unforgiving.

Armed with knife, fork, and corkscrew, Peter Mayle travels to every corner of France. From bouillabaisse to escargot, here is all the glory and pleasure of the French table in the most satisfying audiobook. Bon appétit!

In Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms, former diplomat Gerard Russell ventures to the distant, nearly impassable regions where these mysterious religions still cling to survival. He lives alongside the Mandaeans and Ezidis of Iraq, the Zoroastrians of Iran, the Copts of Egypt, and others. He learns their histories, participates in their rituals, and comes to understand the threats to their communities.

Crossing the Grand Canyon rim to rim is considered by many hikers and runners to be one of the greatest “bucket-list” achievements. Thousands make the pilgrimage each year to experience the joy of journeying across the Canyon's great expanse. Anyone who descends into the canyon should take time to learn about the history of the trails they use.

From Robinson Crusoe and The Swiss Family Robinson to Alive! and Adrift, tales of survival have captivated readers. Here are the most remarkable stories imaginable of maroons, castaways, and other survivors from the 1500s to the present: their moral dilemmas, their personalities, and their influence on society, literature, and art.

In this original and evocative book, we accompany Raja on six walks taken between 1978 and 2006. The earlier forays are peaceful affairs, allowing our guide to meditate at length on the character of his native land, a terrain of olive trees on terraced hillsides, luxuriant valleys carved by sacred springs, carpets of wild iris and hyacinth, and ancient monasteries built over 1,000 years ago. Shehadeh’s love for this magical place saturates his renderings of its history and topography.

This thoughtful examination of a century of travel writing about the American West overturns a variety of popular and academic stereotypes. Looking at both European and American travelers' accounts of the West, from de Tocqueville's Democracy in America to William Least Heat-Moon's Blue Highways, David Wrobel offers a counternarrative to the nation's romantic entanglement with its Western past and suggests the importance of some long-overlooked authors, lively and perceptive witnesses to our history who deserve new attention.

Steinbeck and Capa's account of their journey through Cold War Russia is a classic piece of reportage and travel writing.Just after the Iron Curtain fell on Eastern Europe, Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Steinbeck and acclaimed war photographer Robert Capa ventured into the Soviet Union to report for the New York Herald Tribune.

As the 18th century approached its midpoint, commercial and military competition between the European states became fierce. And whoever obtained accurate information about distant lands would hold an advantage. Were there continental landmasses in the Pacific? Was there a Northwest Passage to Japan and China? What lay in the interior of Africa? Was it possible to cross the Sahara? Where did the rivers Nile and Congo originate?

Paris—city of love, food, culture—is steeped in a rich history known the world over. From the creative minds of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, who both frequented the world-famous Moulin Rouge at the turn of the twentieth century, to the many historic changes that saw Paris expand into the city of twenty arrondissements that residents and tourists flock to every year. In A Brief History of Paris, historian Cecil Black entertainingly details the stories behind the culture, locations, architecture, people, food and more that keeps visitors enchanted.

Byron and Hitler were equally entranced by Rome's most famous monument, the Colosseum. Mid-Victorians admired the hundreds of varieties of flowers in its crannies and occasionally shuddered at its reputation for contagion, danger, and sexual temptation. Today it is the highlight of a tour of Italy for more than three million visitors a year, a concert arena for the likes of Paul McCartney, and a national symbol of opposition to the death penalty. Its ancient history is chock full of romantic but erroneous myths.

Every cheese tells a story. Whether it's a fresh young goat's cheese or a big, beefy 18-month-old Cheddar, each variety holds the history of the people who first made it, from the builders of Stonehenge to medieval monks, from the Stilton-makers of the 18th century to the factory cheesemakers of the Second World War. Cheesemonger Ned Palmer takes us on a delicious journey across Britain and Ireland and through time to uncover the histories of beloved old favourites like Cheddar and Wensleydale and fresh innovations like the Irish Cashel Blue or the rambunctious Renegade Monk.

Throughout history, precious stones have inspired passions and poetry, quests and curses, sacred writings and unsacred actions. Blending adventure travel, geology, exciting new research and her own irresistible charm, Finlay has fashioned a treasure hunt for some of the most valuable, glamorous, and mysterious substances on earth. Jewels is a unique and often exhilarating voyage through history, across cultures, deep into the earth's mantle, and up to the glittering heights of fame, power and wealth.

Switzerland is a remarkable country, half of whose territory lies in the Alps. This is the history of one Swiss alpine village. Raising cattle and making cheese brought modest wealth to its struggling peasants until a destructive Napoleonic invasion brought revolution and poverty. Well-being was slowly restored by a democratic unification of Switzerland. The Alps took on a romantic tourist glow in the Edwardian age and after the disruptions of two world wars the highland farmers and guest house keeps began to prosper.