This is not the Alexandria in the Nile Delta, but rather Alexandria 'Beneath the Mountains', in Afghanistan, discovered by a wandering scholar and archaeologist called Charles Masson in 1833... read more
C20th experimental and idealistic collectives, including Santiniketan in Delhi, England's Dartington, Germany's Bruderhof. Their leaders were charismatics too - Tagore, Gurdjieff, et al - ... read more
From being America's most significant ally in the region, Iran suddenly became its greatest adversary: this account, from 1941 onwards, explains how the Shah himself contrived to lose suppor... read more
A marvellous history of pilgrimage around the world. Sacred landscapes, geographical hotspots where cultures, religions and trade routes meet, the remote and the metropolitan - and humanity'... read more
From the author of the biography of Shchukin comes the story of another extraordinary pre-Revolutionary Russian collector of European art. He spent 1.5 million francs on 486 paintings, which... read more
Anna Roosevelt, Sarah Churchill and Kathleen Harriman all accompanied their fathers to the Yalta Conference. This is an intriguing account of their involvement and influence on events.
It seems the 'Mrs Burton' (born Ursula Kuczynski) who pedalled around the English countryside in 1942 was a colonel in the Red Army. Her life story is extraordinary.
Berlin is defined by its many edges - the blurred edge between Huns and Slavs, pagan and Christian, the competing spheres of influence of Western Europe and Russia, autocracy and democracy, ... read more
Fabric - and our hunger for it - as the mother of invention, the driver behind technology, agriculture, trade, politics, culture... it funded the Italian Renaissance and the Mughal empire. H... read more
Another mighty slab of wisdom from ACG. Not just about what we know, but also about what we don't know... Grayling is a master of conjuring sense and meaning out of the most abstract and dis... read more
Interwar Cairo was raucous and cosmopolitan, its burgeoning counterculture pioneered by women - singers, dancers and actresses.
Publication of this book has been delayed under May 6th 202... read more