Bagan, the ancient Buddhist capital in central Myanmar (Burma) that thrived from 850-1300, is one of the most magnificent and inspiring sites in Southeast Asia. It is yours to uncover.
The temples of Thailand — overflowing with golden Buddhas, soaring spires and glistening surfaces of infinite complexity — stir the spirit, inviting contemplation and wonder. This Approach Guide reveals the country’s best art and architecture from its three great historical capitals: Sukhothai (1238-1368), Ayutthaya (1350-1767), and Bangkok (1782-present). It is yours to discover.
A fantastic collection of royal tombs sits solemnly along the banks of the Perfume river, upstream of Hue to the southwest. They were built by the Nguyen dynasty — which ruled over a unified Vietnam from 1802-1945 — to maintain their legacy for ages to come. Named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993, the tombs inspire with their perfectly-integrated natural surroundings, captivating dragon…
With insightful profiles for 23 of Angkor's top temples and nearly 200 high-resolution images, this is the definitive travel guide to Angkor, Cambodia's premier World Heritage destination. Angkor — the capital of the Khmer empire that thrived for 500 years from 802-1327 — is one of the most magnificent sites in Southeast Asia. The ancient city’s temples inspire with their innovative ar…
In the spring of 2020, the world came to a halt. Schools, shops, and restaurants closed. Millions of people lost their jobs. Office staffmoved to teleworking while essential workers did double shifts to attend to patients or deliver food. Manufacturing almost stopped. Roads emptied. Airports shut down. This came to be known as the Great Lockdown. The COVID-19 pandemic is the most …
Emptiness is a challenging concept: slippery in definition and elastic in meaning. It implies a total lack of content: people, buildings, objects or markings on a map. In the abstract, emptiness equals nothingness, a perfect void. Yet when one thinks of places on the globe that one might associate with being empty – the Gobi or Sahara deserts, t…
Behind all the food that we eat is a vast realm of unaccounted for interactions:the diversion of water from rivers; the extraction of nutrients from soil; thedischarge of pollutants to air and water; the exaction of labor to grow, manage,pick, and package; the release of carbon dioxide to transport and deliver; and soon. When we shine a light on these interactions it becomes clear that a 99¢ha…
A Literary History of Medicine by the Syrian physician Ibn Ab? U?aybi?ah (d. 1270) is the earliest comprehensive history of medicine. It contains biographies of over 432 physicians, ranging from the ancient Greeks to the author’s contemporaries, describing their training and practice, often as court physicians, and listing their medical works; all this interlaced with poems and anecdotes. The…
No city in the world is better covered by literature – fictional and non-fictional – than London. From Pepys, via Dickens, to Ackroyd, London has benefited from a series of talented historians, novelists and commentators who have provided detailed accounts of the city’s condition. In the past few years a new tranche of books has been published on the contemporary character of the…
Dying in Full Detail: Mortality and Digital Documentary will consider the con-sequences of that new practicality, examining documentarians’ recent pursuits of death with equipment that promises to capture its “full detail.” In The Note-books of Malte Laurids Brigge (1910), Rainer Maria Rilke composes the phrase I have appropriated for my title. In context, its meaning refers to a style of…