Rome on the Euphrates
The Story of a Frontier
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Published:15th May '12
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
A detailed account of famed travel writer Freya Stark's journey through the Mediterranean. When Roman legions marched into Asia Minor in 200BC, their plan was to secure a buffer zone between the Mediterranean, which they virtually owned, and the area beyond, which they sought to isolate rather than control. Along the long frontier of the Euphrates in Turkey lay the easternmost limits of the Roman Empire - a region they called Augusta Euphrantentis. Their expanding involvement lasted eight centuries, draining their energies and culminating in the destruction of the bridge that, since the time of Alexander the Great, had linked China to the commerce of the Mediterranean. Tracing the path of this ancient river and highlighting her travels with the vibrant history of 800 years of Roman warfare and the history of this mighty river, Freya Stark ultimately reveals the futility of war, of arbitrary boundaries, and territorial conquest. Rome on the Euphrates, at once travelogue and history, is one of Stark's most magnificent and highly acclaimed works.
It was rare to leave her company without feeling that the world was somehow larger and more promising. Her life was something of a work of art... The books in which she recorded her journeys were seductively individual... Nomad and social lioness, public servant and private essayist, emotional victim and mythmaker. -- Colin Thubron * New York Times *
Few writers have the capacity to do with words what Faberge could do with gems - to fashion them, without violating their quality. It is this extraordinary talent which sets Freya Stark apart from her fellow craftsman in the construction on books on travel. * The Daily Telegraph *
Freya Stark remains unexcelled as an interpreter of brief encounters in wild regions against the backdrop of history. * The Observer *
One of the finest writers of our century. * The New Yorker *
A Middle East traveller, an explorer and, above all, a writer, Freya Stark has, with an incomparably clear eye, looked toward the horizon of the past without ever losing sight of the present. Her books are route plans of a perceptive intelligence, traversing time and space with ease. * Saudi Aramco World *
ISBN: 9781848853140
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 549g
496 pages