In these times of natural and man-made disasters, this book examines how nature can reclaim even the most abused land once we have gone.
The author explores a dozen sites around the world that have been damaged and then abandoned by humans, including the demilitarised zone separating the two parts of Cyprus, the forests around Chornobyl, the polluted battlefields of Verdun, enormous but derelict collective farms in Estonia, and the toxic muds of Newark Bay.
Perhaps the most extraordinary story concerns a herd of cows on the Scottish island of Swona. When the last humans left in 1974, "almost as an afterthought, they turned to the byre and opened the gate, letting the cattle loose, to fend for themselves until their return." No permanent inhabitant has returned to this day, and the cows have successfully readapted to a post-human landscape.
I found the overall effect of this book both reassuring and unsettling. The examples from around the world suggest that nature can save itself. Nature is stronger and more resilient than any single species.
A beautiful, lyrical exploration of the places where nature is flourishing in our absence
"[Flyn] captures the dread, sadness, and wonder of beholding the results of humanity's destructive impulse, and she arrives at a new appreciation of life, 'all the stranger and more valuable for its resilence.'" --The New Yorker
Some of the only truly feral cattle in the world wander a long-abandoned island off the northernmost tip of Scotland. A variety of wildlife not seen in many lifetimes has rebounded on the irradiated grounds of Chernobyl. A lush forest supports thousands of species that are extinct or endangered everywhere…
With the help of the life stories of some of the people who used to live in her Pyrenean home, Rosemary Bailey provides a digestible overview of the succession of tragic events that affected the French side of the Pyrenees between the end of the Spanish Civil War and the liberation of France at the end of the Second World War.
We meet refugees of many types, heroes of the Resistance, Allied airmen, and collaborators who were all caught up in the political and military turmoil of the period. We also discover the tragic story of the concentration camps that imprisoned a succession of different groups or types of human beings, depending on the direction of the winds of war.
Overall, this book made me reflect on what surely rates as one of the least glorious periods of French history. It also inspired me to visit many of the locations, most recently the Rivesaltes Memorial Camp near Perpignan.
Over the fifteen years Bailey has been living in the region, the more she realised she didn't know, and people did not want her to know, about the war; about the French during the Occupation, the real role of the Resistance, the level of collaboration, the concentration camps in the Pyrenees and the treatment of Jews and other refugees. It is still very much a veiled history. Although people now acknowledge that the role of the Resistance in winning the war was exaggerated and glorified way beyond its actual numbers or achievements, few are willing to admit the level of…
This book provides a chilling account of how Stalin came to power and stayed there.
The horror experienced by the wider population during this period stays mainly in the background. Instead, the focus is on the inner workings of Stalin’s regime, how its leaders and their families lived, how they plotted against each other, and how Stalin liquidated enemies, friends, ministers, enemies or their families to ensure he kept his grip on the Soviet Union.
This book made a particularly powerful impression on me, given the activities of the current Russian leadership, and left me wondering to what extent the workings of the modern Russian state draw on practices from an earlier time.
Winner of the British Book Awards History Book of the Year
Longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize
This thrilling biography of Stalin and his entourage during the terrifying decades of his supreme power transforms our understanding of Stalin as Soviet dictator, Marxist leader and Russian tsar.
Based on groundbreaking research, Simon Sebag Montefiore reveals in captivating detail the fear and betrayal, privilege and debauchery, family life and murderous cruelty of this secret world. Written with extraordinary narrative verve, this magnificent feat of scholarly research has become a classic of modern history writing. Showing how Stalin's triumphs and crimes were the…
Menu from theMidiexplores French gastronomy from the farmer’s field to the dining room table.
Concentrating on the south of France, the book is structured as a menu carefully compiled to give the reader a balanced diet of gastronomy, history, legend, and local color. Uniquely, it adds into this mix a celebration of the dedicated and passionate people who produce some of the finest raw ingredients and foodstuffs you are ever likely to taste.
Sit back, relax, and savor the oldest sparkling wine in the world, le Rolls-Royce of olives, pink garlic soup, meats of the black Gascon pig, the legendary cassoulet, cheese from the caves of Roquefort, and learn how the Midi’s ornate pigeon towers ensured a constant supply of roast pigeon.
