Chasing Tales is the first exclusive study of journalism, travel writing and the history of British ideas about Afghanistan. It offers a timely investigation of the notional Afghanistan(s) that have prevailed in the popular British imagination. Casting its net deep into the nineteenth century, the study investigates the country's mythologisation by scrutinising travel narratives, literary fiction and British news media coverage of the recent conflict in Afghanistan. This highly topical book explores the legacy of nineteenth-century paranoias and prejudices to contemporary travellers and journalists and seeks to explain why Afghans continue to be depicted as medieval, murderous, warlike and unruly. Its title, Chasing Tales, conveys the circulation, and indeed the circularity, of ideas commonly found in British travel writing and journalism. The 'tales' component stresses the pivotal role played by fictionalised sources, especially the writing of Rudyard Kipling, in perpetuating traumatic nineteenth-century memories of Afghan-British encounter. The subject matter is compelling and its foci of interest profoundly relevant both to current political debates and to scholarly enquiry about the ethics of travel.

Chasing Tales is the first-hand account of a working man's travels round some of the world's hottest spots - literally and metaphorically. Written by Liverpool-born engineer, Ken Hopley, it spans his first sea-trip to Mexico in 1967 as a young Merchant Navy officer to being bombed in the Iran-Iraq War, from being awake during an appendicitis operation in a Syria hospital to an enforced retirement after suffering two strokes aged 65, giving a funny and uncompromising view of a changed man and a changing world. This book contains his experience of 50 years working all over the world as an engineer, from major oil and gas companies (including the shady ones) to oil rigs, FPSO's refineries, gas plants and universities in some extremely interesting places, with highly interesting people. And yes, by interesting, he almost always means odd. And sometimes just downright dangerous.

Chasing Tales is the first exclusive study of journalism, travel writing and the history of British ideas about Afghanistan. It offers a timely investigation of the notional Afghanistan(s) that have prevailed in the popular British imagination. Casting its net deep into the nineteenth century, the study investigates the country’s mythologisation by scrutinising travel narratives, literary fiction and British news media coverage of the recent conflict in Afghanistan. This highly topical book explores the legacy of nineteenth-century paranoias and prejudices to contemporary travellers and journalists and seeks to explain why Afghans continue to be depicted as medieval, murderous, warlike and unruly. Its title, Chasing Tales, conveys the circulation, and indeed the circularity, of ideas commonly found in British travel writing and journalism. The ‘tales’ component stresses the pivotal role played by fictionalised sources, especially the writing of Rudyard Kipling, in perpetuating traumatic nineteenth-century memories of Afghan-British encounter. The subject matter is compelling and its foci of interest profoundly relevant both to current political debates and to scholarly enquiry about the ethics of travel.

A sad little mermaid trades her voice for legs to get a stupid human prince to fall in love with her. What a crock. That wasn't how my story went at all. That's not even how mermaids work. We can have legs whenever we want them. We just mostly choose not to because we dislike people who live on land. I never would have set foot there, but I needed to kill a druid king. Yeah, the little mermaid didn't come on land to fall in love with a prince. She went there to kill a king. There are rules. Certain waters are off limits for the land dwellers. He came to my home in a large ship and killed several of my friends. The sea council might want to let that slide, but he killed my sister, so now I have to end him. Getting close enough to the king to kill him is going to be hard. He has three sons that could be my answer to living through this. They aren't bad for druid royalty. Two of them are kindle and gentle. The other is a little mean in a way I can appreciate. Still, I don't trust any druid. Out of all the supernatural creatures on land, they are the worst. A lot of their magic requires bits from living beings and their ethics on getting those aren't exactly sound. I might like his sons, but this can't go anywhere. Most people tend to balk at relationships when you kill their father. I won't stop until it's done. I owe it to my sister.

With the help of her fintastic friends, Echo investigates whether or not fairies really DO exist in this sparkling Mermaid Tales adventure. Echo is excited when her Aunt Crabella and Uncle Leopold visit, especially since Aunt Crabella always has amazing stories about all of her many ocean travels. But when Aunt Crabella tells Echo about the Hairy Fairy—a fairy that visits mermaids while they sleep and purposely tangles their hair—Echo is all set to catch the fairy in the act. Shelly and Kiki tell Echo that fairies aren’t real, but Aunt Crabella says she believes they are. And what’s the harm in believing? When Echo can’t seem to catch the Hairy Fairy, she becomes determined to figure out if fairies really do exist! She teams up with Shelly and Kiki and makes “Fairy Juice” (via a recipe from Rocky Ridge) in order to go on a fairy hunt on Trident City’s majestic Sperm Whale Mountain. But what will they find on their fairy hunt? Will all of Echo’s magical fairy dreams come true?

How have long-standing and unconscious secular assumptions about religion shaped the post-9/11 climate and its wars? Stacey Gutkowski explores this little-examined, yet crucial, element of British perceptions of and policy towards Jihadism over the last decade, to draw critical conclusions about the relationship between war and the secular. She points to a surprisingly coherent body of secular beliefs that have fuelled policies in Iraq, Afghanistan and counter-terrorism, and that have had mixed results - responsible for both positive strategies and tragic errors. The theory Gutkowski develops on the impact of this secular approach to warfare holds a broader global significance, and cannot be viewed as just a British phenomenon. This book addresses ongoing and critical debates, such as the 'overreach' of Western liberal interventionism in the Middle East, and speaks to policy-makers, security analysts and students of IR, Foreign Policy and Security Studies.