Extract – Page 3 – Stanfords Blog

Muslim Europe in Five Sites

In his 2021 bestselling book, Minarets in the Mountains: a Journey into Muslim Europe, author Tharik Hussain tells the story of Europe’s living indigenous Muslim communities in countries like Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Albania and Montenegro, where they have been living for almost six centuries. Yet the story of Muslim Europe is actually as old as Islam itself. These five places of European Muslim heritage reveal the continent’s fourteen centuries of Islamic presence.

An extract from Allegorizings by Jan Morris

The Stanfords November Book of the Month is Allegorizings by Jan Morris. Published one year on from her death, at the age of ninety-four, it is the final despatch from one of the greatest chroniclers of the Twentieth Century. To give you a taste, here is an extract from Allegorizings:

Paradise Somewhere

If paradise is the stuff of the conventional promise, all sweetmeats and complaisant houris, then I certainly have never experienced it. But a nirvana of a different kind I did transiently enter long ago, when I was on my way back to Kathmandu, in Nepal, out of the Himalayas. I was travelling with a Sherpa friend of mine. His name was Sonam. We had come out of the mountains fast, and when we got down into the foothills I began to feel ill and weak – the reverse of altitude sickness, I suppose. The monsoon had broken upon us, and the endless rain did not help, but ‘Come with me to my home village,’ Sonam said, ‘and we will make you better.’

Fifty Words for Snow by Nancy Campbell

Fifty Words for Snow is a journey to discover snow in cultures around the world through different languages. The climate is a prism through which to view the human world – just as language can be. It is possible to see back into the distant past and trace the historical movement of people through a single unit of meaning: in Europe, for example, many words (snow, snee, nieve, etc.) stem from the same root, the ancient Latin nix and Greek nipha – the initial s comes and goes, without concealing the close connection.

An extract from ‘On Gallows Down’ by Nicola Chester

The following is an extract from On Gallows Down: Place, Protest and Belonging (Chelsea Green Publishing, October 2021) by Nicola Chester and is reprinted with permission from the publisher.

Bird in a Landscape

It is St George’s Day, late April, two days shy of my birthday. The sky is the colour of a pheasant’s egg and skylarks are singing against it at such a height I can’t see them. A just discernible shimmer of heat blurs the near horizon of orange gravel that marks the old runway of this former US airbase. I am sitting on my hands on top of an old American fire hydrant, its once-smooth sides speckled with rust and yellow and red paint curled and crusted like lichen. I can’t quite reach the ground and sit swinging my legs, a toe occasionally reaching a knobbly chunk of flint to kick away. I think I’ve been stood up.

Atlas of Imagined Places: From Lilliput to Gotham City

Atlas of Imagined Places: From Lilliput to Gotham City is a stunning map collection of invented geography and topography drawn from the world’s imagination.

The maps feature fictional buildings, towns, cities and countries plus mountains and rivers, oceans and seas. Ever wondered where the Bates Motel was based? Or Bedford Falls in It’s a Wonderful Life? The authors have taken years to research the likely geography of thousands of popular culture locations that have become almost real to us.

Here is an extract from the chapter on CENTRAL AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN by Matt Brown & Rhys B. Davies with maps by Mike Hall.

The Long Field by Pamela Petro

Wales, and the Presence of Absence – A Memoir

by Pamela Petro

The Long Field burrows into the Welsh countryside to tell how the small country of Wales became a big part of American writer Pamela Petro’s life. Petro, author of Travels in an Old Tongue – Touring the World Speaking Welsh, writes about herself and Wales through the lens of hiraeth, a Welsh word famously hard to translate. (It can mean, literally, “long field.”) Hiraeth refers to a bone-deep longing for someone or something–a home, culture, language, a younger self–that you’ve lost or left behind or that was imaginary to begin with, hovering always in the future. It’s a name for the presence of absence.

Walking in the Isles of Scilly: The Garrison Wall

-by Paddy Dillon

Of all the British Isles, the Isles of Scilly are the most blessed. Basking in sunshine, rising green and pleasant from the blue Atlantic Ocean, fringed by rugged cliffs and sandy beaches, these self-contained little worlds are a joy to explore. They are as close to a tropical paradise as it is possible to be in the British Isles, with more sunshine hours than anyone else enjoys. There are no tall mountains, but the rocks around the coast are as dramatic as you’ll find anywhere. There are no extensive moorlands, but you’ll forget that as you walk round the open heathery headlands. The islands may be small in extent, but the eye is deceived and readily imagines vast panoramas and awesome seascapes. Views to the sea take in jagged rocks that have ripped many a keel and wrecked many a ship. The islands are clothed in colourful flowers, both cultivated and wild, and attract a rich bird life, including native breeding species and seasonal migrants. And always, there is the sea.

The Isles of Scilly form the smallest of Britain’s Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and their historic shores have been designated as Heritage Coast. The surrounding sea is protected as a Marine Park of great biodiversity. Archaeological remains abound, not only on the islands, but also submerged beneath the sea. The Isles of Scilly are special, revealing their secrets and charms to those who walk the headlands, sail from island to island, and take the time to observe the sights, sounds and scents of the landscape. While the walks in this guidebook could be completed in as little as a week, a fortnight would allow a much more leisurely appreciation of the islands, and leave memories that will last for a lifetime.

An extract from ‘The Power of Geography’ by Tim Marshall

Tim Marshall’s global bestseller Prisoners of Geography showed how every nation’s choices are limited by mountains, rivers, seas and concrete. Since then, the geography hasn’t changed. But the world has.

In this revelatory new book The Power of Geography, Marshall explores ten regions that are set to shape global politics in a new age of great-power rivalry: Australia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UK, Greece, Turkey, the Sahel, Ethiopia, Spain and Space.

Delivered with Marshall’s trademark wit and insight, this is a lucid and gripping exploration of the power of geography to shape humanity’s past, present – and future.

We are honoured to have an extract from the Australia chapter to share with you:

Around the World in 80 Plants by Jonathan Drori

In his follow-up to the bestselling Around the World in 80 Trees, Jonathan Drori takes another trip across the globe, bringing to life the science of plants by revealing how their worlds are intricately entwined with our own history, culture and folklore. From the seemingly familiar tomato and dandelion to the eerie mandrake and Spanish ‘moss’ of Louisiana, each of these stories is full of surprises. Some have a troubling past, while others have ignited human creativity or enabled whole civilizations to flourish. With a colourful cast of characters all brought to life by illustrator Lucille Clerc, Around the World in 80 Plants is a botanical journey of beauty and brilliance.

Here Jonathan Drori gives us an insight into a few of the plants that feature in his book:

A Connemara Journey by Hilary Bradt

A Connemara Journey is Hilary Bradt’s classic account of a journey through Ireland on horseback in the 1980s published for the first time in a single volume.

In 1984, Hilary Bradt achieved an ambition from her pony-mad childhood to undertake a long-distance ride. Using her experience of horsepacking in Peru with saddlebags imported from America, she and her pony set forth with no decent maps, and only a vague idea of the route. The book is also a portrait of a vanished rural Ireland before the Celtic Tiger era, built up from descriptions and conversations with local people.

The journey takes Bradt a thousand miles south from county Mayo, around the peninsulas of Kerry and Cork, and inland towards Waterford.

A Connemara Journey

By Hilary Bradt

£12.99

-by Hilary Bradt

From my horsey childhood growing up in the 1950s and addicted to pony books, I had dreamed of having my own pony and going on a long-distance ride. No more riding-school hour doing a circular hack, but days out exploring the countryside with my perfect pony. This finally came to pass in 1984 when I found myself single again and ready to embark on this greatest of all adventures.

First I had to decide where to go.

I know, Iceland! It had all the requirements: lovely scenery, a tough breed of native pony and friendly people who generally spoke English. I’d been there and loved it. I tried out the idea by rather casually mentioning in my Christmas letter that I was going to buy a native pony in Iceland and do a long-distance ride. I received a reply from a horsey friend: “Ireland! What a great idea. A Connemara pony would be strong enough and it’s such a beautiful country. And they love horses.” Oh. My handwriting… well, let’s think about Ireland then. It had never come into my reckoning, perhaps because of a very wet family holiday there where we children had sulkily squelched up Ireland’s highest mountain in mist and rain. But now, suddenly, everything fell into place. Ireland was an ideal choice. Scenic, safe, English-speaking … perfect!