The Austro-Hungarian aristocrat of Transylvanian origin, Baron Franz Nopcsa (1877-1933), was one of the most adventuresome travelers and scholars of Southeast Europe in the early decades of the twentieth century. He was also a paleontologist of renown and a noted geologist of the Balkan Peninsula : many of his assumptions have been confirmed by science. The Memoirs of this fascinating figure deal mainly with his travels in the Balkans, and specifically in the remote and wild mountains of northern Albania, in the years from 1903 to 1914. They thus cover the period of Ottoman Rule, the Balkan Wars and the outbreak of the First World War. Nopcsa was a keen adventurer who hiked through regions of northern Albania. With time, he became a leading expert in Albanian studies. He was also deeply involved in the politics of the period. In 1913, Nopcsa even offered himself as a candidate for the vacant Albanian throne. The Introduction also tells of Nopcsa's tragic death: he shot his Albanian secretary and partner before killing himself. The memoirs themselves reveal some references to his homosexuality for those who can read between the lines.

The Austro-Hungarian aristocrat of Transylvanian origin, Baron Franz Nopcsa (1877-1933), was one of the most adventuresome travelers and scholars of Southeast Europe in the early decades of the twentieth century. He was also a paleontologist of renown and a noted geologist of the Balkan Peninsula : many of his assumptions have been confirmed by science. The Memoirs of this fascinating figure deal mainly with his travels in the Balkans, and specifically in the remote and wild mountains of northern Albania, in the years from 1903 to 1914. They thus cover the period of Ottoman Rule, the Balkan Wars and the outbreak of the First World War. Nopcsa was a keen adventurer who hiked through regions of northern Albania.ÿ With time, he became a leading expert in Albanian studies. He was also deeply involved in the politics of the period. In 1913,ÿNopcsa even offered himself as a candidate for the vacant Albanian throne. The Introduction also tells of Nopcsa?s tragic death: he shot his Albanian secretary and partner before killing himself. The memoirs themselves reveal some references to his homosexuality for those who can read between the lines. ÿ

The Austro-Hungarian aristocrat of Transylvanian origin, Baron Franz Nopcsa (1877-1933), was one of the most adventuresome travelers and scholars of Southeast Europe in the early decades of the twentieth century. He was also a paleontologist of renown and a noted geologist of the Balkan Peninsula : many of his assumptions have been confirmed by science. The Memoirs of this fascinating figure deal mainly with his travels in the Balkans, and specifically in the remote and wild mountains of northern Albania, in the years from 1903 to 1914. They thus cover the period of Ottoman Rule, the Balkan Wars and the outbreak of the First World War. Nopcsa was a keen adventurer who hiked through regions of northern Albania. With time, he became a leading expert in Albanian studies. He was also deeply involved in the politics of the period. In 1913, Nopcsa even offered himself as a candidate for the vacant Albanian throne. The Introduction also tells of Nopcsa's tragic death: he shot his Albanian secretary and partner before killing himself. The memoirs themselves reveal some references to his homosexuality for those who can read between the lines.

Northern Albania and Montenegro are the only regions in Europe to have retained a true tribal society up to the mid-twentieth century. This book provides the first scholarly investigation of this tribal society, a pioneer work that offers a detailed survey of all the major Albanian-speaking tribes in Albania, Montenegro and Kosovo. Robert Elsie provides comprehensive material on the 69 different tribes, including data on their locations, religious affiliations, tribal structures and relations, population statistics, tribal folklore, legends and history. Also included are excerpts from the works of prominent nineteenth and early-twentieth century writers, such as Edith Durham and Johann Georg von Hahn, who travelled through the tribal regions, as well as short biographies on prominent figures linked to the tribes. As the first book of its kind, The Tribes of Albania will be of interest to scholars and students of the Balkans, of southeastern European anthropology, ethnography and history.

This book examines the nexus between exploring and tourism and argues that exploration travel – based heavily on explorer narratives and the promises of personal challenges and change – is a major trend in future tourism. In particular, it analyses how romanticised myths of explorers form a foundation for how modern day tourists view travel and themselves. Its scope ranges from the 'Golden Age' of imperial explorers in the 19th and early 20th centuries, through the growth of adventure and extreme tourism, to possible future trends including space travel. The volume should appeal to researchers and students across a variety of disciplines, including tourism studies, sociology, geography and history.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE RBC TAYLOR PRIZE WINNER OF THE EDNA STAEBLER AWARD FOR CREATIVE NON-FICTION "Every day on a bike trip is like the one before--but it is also completely different, or perhaps you are different, woken up in new ways by the mile." As a teenager, Kate Harris realized that the career she most craved--that of a generalist explorer, equal parts swashbuckler and philosopher--had gone extinct. From her small-town home in Ontario, it seemed as if Marco Polo, Magellan and their like had long ago mapped the whole earth. So she vowed to become a scientist and go to Mars. To pass the time before she could launch into outer space, Kate set off by bicycle down a short section of the fabled Silk Road with her childhood friend Mel Yule, then settled down to study at Oxford and MIT. Eventually the truth dawned on her: an explorer, in any day and age, is by definition the kind of person who refuses to live between the lines. And Harris had soared most fully out of bounds right here on Earth, travelling a bygone trading route on her bicycle. So she quit the laboratory and hit the Silk Road again with Mel, this time determined to bike it from the beginning to end. Like Rebecca Solnit and Pico Iyer before her, Kate Harris offers a travel narrative at once exuberant and meditative, wry and rapturous. Weaving adventure and deep reflection with the history of science and exploration, Lands of Lost Borders explores the nature of limits and the wildness of a world that, like the self and like the stars, can never be fully mapped.

No previous generation has ever travelled so energetically or so obsessively as ours, nor has travel writing ever been so much in fashion as it is now. But behind the self-conscious literary artistry of today's narratives there lies a rich and fascinating history of travel writing, stretching back over several thousand years.Travel writing has emerged from migration, war, exploration, trade, conquest, pilgrimage, science, and poetic longing. But when they recorded their travels, the military commanders of Greece and Rome, the navigators of the Age of Discovery, the diplomats and missionaries of the seventeenth century, the dilettantes who set out on the Grand Tour, the romantic travellers and the scientists of the nineteenth century all had one thing in common: they were re-imagining the world, re-interpreting it in their own minds and for their readers.This is the first general survey of the entire history of travel literature, with illustrations reproduced from manuscripts and books in the Bodleian Library's collections. Writers covered include Marco Polo, Sir John Mandeville, Thomas Coryate, Captain Cook, T.E. Lawrence, and Christopher Columbus as well as Boswell and Johnson, Byron, Ruskin, Defoe, Conrad, and James. This book highlights over a hundred texts, showing how one motive for travelling has been succeeded by another, and how travel writing has often inhabited a strange borderland between truth and imagination, fact and fiction. It demonstrates how travel writers have slowly outgrown their traditional stance of superiority to all things 'foreign', and have moved towards a deeper sensitivity to other lands and other cultures.