Bernard Ollivier pushes onward in his attempt to become the first person to walk the entire length of the Great Silk Road. “A gripping account. More than just a travel story—this is a quest for the Other.”—Alexis Liebaert, L’Événement Picking up where Walking to Samarkand left off, Winds of the Steppe continues the astonishing tale of journalist Bernard Ollivier’s 7,200-mile walk from Turkey to China along the Silk Road, the longest and most mythical trade route of all time. Taking readers from the snows of the Pamir Mountains to the backstreets of Kashgar—a Central Asian city that could be the setting for One Thousand and One Nights—to the Tian Shan Mountains to the endless Taklamakan and Gobi Deserts of China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Bernard Ollivier continues his epic foot journey along the Great Silk Road hoping to make his way to Han China and reach, at long last, the legendary city of Xi’an. After traveling through a region dotted with former Buddhist shrines, Ollivier finds himself craving the warm welcome of Islamic lands, where, regardless of their culture or nationality, travelers are often treated as esteemed guests. Beyond the occasional vestige of the old Silk Road, Ollivier comes face to face with sites of religious significance, China’s Great Wall, and of course thousands of everyday people along the way. As Ollivier tries to make sense of his journey and find connections between these people’s daily lives and the so-called “modern” world, he does so with a sense of humility that transforms his personal journey into a universal quest.

Acclaimed journalist Bernard Ollivier continues his epic journey across Persia and Central Asia as he walks the length of the Great Silk Road. Walking to Samarkand is journalist Bernard Ollivier’s stunning account of the second leg of his 7,200-mile walk from Istanbul, Turkey, to Xi’an, China, along the Silk Road--the longest and perhaps most mythical trade route of all time. Picking up where Out of Istanbul left off, Ollivier heads out of the Middle East and into Central Asia, grappling not only with his own will to continue but with new, unforeseen dangers. After crossing the final mountain passes of Turkish Kurdistan, Ollivier sets foot in Iran, keen on locating vestiges of the silk trade as he passes through Persia’s modern cities and traditional villages, including Tabriz, Tehran, Nishapur, and the holy city of Mashhad. Beyond urban areas lie deserts: first Iran’s Great Salt Desert, then Turkmenistan’s forbidding Karakum, whose relentless sun, snakes, and scorpions pose continuous challenges to Ollivier’s goal of reaching Uzbekistan. Setting his own fears aside, he travels on, wonderstruck at every turn, borne by a childhood dream: to see for himself the golden domes and turquoise skies of Samarkand, one of Central Asia’s most ancient cities. But what Ollivier enjoys most are the people along the way: Askar, the hospitable gardener; the pilgrims of Mashhad; and his knights in shining armor, Mehdi and Monir. For, despite setting out alone, he comes to find that walking itself—through a kind of alchemy—surrounds him with friends and fosters fellowship. From the authoritarian mullahs of revolutionary Iran to the warm welcome of everyday Iranians—custodians of age-old, cordial Persian culture; from the stark realities of former Soviet republics to the region’s legendary bazaars—veritable feasts for the senses—readers discover, through the eyes of a veteran journalist, the rich history and contemporary culture of these amazing lands.

Acclaimed journalist Bernard Ollivier begins his epic journey on foot across the Silk Road. Upon retirement at the age of sixty-two, and grieving his deceased wife, renowned journalist Bernard Ollivier felt a sense of profound emptiness: What do I do now? While some see retirement as a chance to cash in their chips and settle into a comfy armchair, Ollivier still longed for more. Searching for inspiration, he strapped on his gear, donned his hat, and headed out the front door to hike the Way of St. James, a 1400-mile journey from Paris to Compostela, Spain. At the end of that road, with more questions than answers, he decided to spend the next few years hiking another of history’s great routes: the Silk Road. Out of Istanbul is Ollivier’s stunning account of the first part of that 7,200-mile journey. The longest and perhaps most mythical trade route of all time, the Silk Road is in fact a network of routes across Europe and Asia, some going back to prehistoric times. During the Middle Ages, the transcribed travelogue of one Silk Road explorer, Marco Polo, helped spread the fame of the Orient throughout Europe. Heading east out of Istanbul, Ollivier takes readers step by step across Anatolia and Kurdistan, bound for Tehran. Along the way, we meet a colorful array of real-life characters: Selim, the philosophical woodsman; old Behçet, elated to practice English after years of self-study; Krishna, manager of the Lora Pansiyon in Polonez, a village of Polish immigrants; the hospitable Kurdish women of Dogutepe, and many more. We accompany Ollivier as he explores bazaars, mosques, and caravansaries—true vestiges of the Silk Road itself—and through these encounters and experiences, gains insight into the complex political and social issues facing modern-day Turkey. Ollivier’s journey, far from bragging about some tremendous achievement, humbly takes the reader on a colossal adventure of human proportions, one in which walking itself, through a kind of alchemy, fosters friendships and fellowship.

Selected as a Book of the Year by the Financial Times, the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator "Travel writing in excelsis." -Jan Morris, author of Venice "A thrilling and gorgeous tale, packed with meteorological wonder." -Amy Liptrot, author of The Outrun Nick Hunt sets off on an unlikely quest: to follow four of Europe's winds across the continent. His wind-walks begin on Cross Fell, the highest point of the Pennines, as he chases the roaring Helm - the only named wind in Britain.In southern Europe he follows the Bora - a bitter northerly that blows from Trieste through Slovenia and down the Croatian coast. His hunt for the "snow-eating" Foehn becomes a meandering journey of exhilaration and despair through the Alpine valleys of Switzerland, and his final walk traces an ancient pilgrims' path in the south of France on the trail of the Mistral - the "wind of madness," which animated and tormented Vincent Van Gogh. These are journeys into wild wind, but also into wild landscapes and the people who inhabit them - a cast of meteorologists, storm chasers, mountain men, eccentric wind enthusiasts, sailors and shepherds. Soon Nick finds himself borne along by the very forces he is pursuing, through rain, blizzards, howling gales, and back through time itself. For, where the wild winds are, there are also myths and legends, history and hearsay, science and superstition - and occasionally remote mountain cabins packed with pickles, cured meats and homemade alcohol. Where the Wild Winds Are is a beautiful, unconventional travelogue that makes the invisible visible.

This is the first environmental history of Russia's steppes. David Moon focuses on the settlement of migrants from central Russia, Ukraine, and central Europe, and analyses how naturalists and scientists came to understand the steppe environment, including the origins of the fertile black earth.

Folklore, social life and customs of ethnic Germans who returned to former settlements near the Lower Volga River in Russia following the Second World War.

A rare, intimate portrait of Gypsies and other wanderers of central Asia. In the late 1970s, when Ljalja Kuznetsova began photographing the people of her native Kazakhstan, provincial Soviet life remained largely a mystery to Westerners. With the eye of a poet, the work of Kuznetsova conveys the expansiveness of the Russian steppe, and within that landscape we discover her elusive subjects. 80 photos.

A fascinating history of the intricate web of trade routes connecting ancient Rome to Eastern civilizations, including its powerful rival, the Han Empire. The Roman Empire and the Silk Routes investigates the trade routes between Rome and the powerful empires of inner Asia, including the Parthian Empire of ancient Persia, and the Kushan Empire which seized power in Bactria (Afghanistan), laying claim to the Indus Kingdoms. Further chapters examine the development of Palmyra as a leading caravan city on the edge of Roman Syria. Raoul McLaughlin also delves deeply into Rome’s trade ventures through the Tarim territories, which led its merchants to the Han Empire of ancient China. Having established a system of Central Asian trade routes known as the Silk Road, the Han carried eastern products as far as Persia and the frontiers of the Roman Empire. Though they were matched in scale, the Han surpassed its European rival in military technology. The first book to address these subjects in a single comprehensive study, The Roman Empire and the Silk Routes explores Rome’s impact on the ancient world economy and reveals what the Chinese and Romans knew about their rival Empires.

The first volume in Tim Robinson's phenomenal Connemara Trilogy - which Robert Macfarlane has called 'One of the most remarkable non-fiction projects undertaken in English'. In its landscape, history and folklore, Connemara is a singular region: ill-defined geographically, and yet unmistakably a place apart from the rest of Ireland. Tim Robinson, who established himself as Ireland's most brilliant living non-fiction writer with the two-volume Stones of Aran, moved from Aran to Connemara nearly twenty years ago. This book is the result of his extraordinary engagement with the mountains, bogs and shorelines of the region, and with its folklore and its often terrible history: a work as beautiful and surprising as the place it attempts to describe. Chosen as a book of the year by Iain Sinclair, Robert Macfarlane and Colm Tóibín 'One of the greatest writers of lands ... No one has disentangled the tales the stones of Ireland have to tell so deftly and retold them so beautifully' Fintan O'Toole 'Dazzling ... an indubitable classic' Giles Foden, Condé Nast Traveller 'He is that rarest of phenomena, a scientist and an artist, and his method is to combine scientific rigour with artistic reverie in a seamless blend that both informs and delights' John Banville 'One of contemporary Ireland's finest literary stylists' Joseph O'Connor, Guardian

At 23, Matt Davis moved to a remote Mongolian town to teach English.What he found when he arrived was a town—and a country—undergoing wholesale change from a traditional, countryside existence to a more urban, modern identity. When Things Get Dark documents these changes through the Mongolians Matt meets, but also focuses on the author's downward spiral into alcohol abuse and violence--a scenario he saw played out by many of the Mongolian men around him. Matt's self-destruction culminates in a drunken fight with three men that forces him to a hospital to have his kidneys X-rayed. He hits bottom in that cold hospital room, his body naked and shivering, a bloodied Mongolian man staring at him from an open door, the irrational thought in his head that maybe he is going to die there. His personal struggles are balanced with insightful descriptions of customs and interactions, and interlaced with essays on Mongolian history and culture that make for a fascinating glimpse of a mysterious place and people.