From the Holy Mountain
|
On Sale:
|
18/06/1998
|
|
Formats:
Trade paperback
|
|
|
|
|
In the spring of 587 AD, two monks set off on an extraordinary journey that would take them in an arc across the entire Byzantine world, from the shores of the Bosphorus to the sand dunes of Egypt. On the way John Moschos and his pupil Sophronius the Sophist stayed in caves, monasteries and remote hermitages, collecting the wisdom of the stylites and the desert fathers before their world shattered under the great eruption of Islam. More than a thousand years later, using Moschos′s writings as his guide, William Dalrymple set off to retrace their footsteps.
Despite centuries of isolation, a surprising number of the monasteries and churches visited by the two monks still survive today, surrounded by often hostile populations. Dalrymple′s pilgrimage took him through a bloody civil war in eastern Turkey, the ruins of Beirut, the vicious tensions of the West Bank and a fundamentalist uprising in southern Egypt. His book is an elegy to the slowly dying civilisation of Eastern Christianity and the peoples that have kept its flame alive. It is a rich and gripping blend of history and spirituality, adventure and politics, laced with a thread of black comedy familiar to readers of Dalrymple′s previous work.
|
|
|
Author Extras
|
|
|
|
White Mughals: Love And Betrayal In 18th Century India
White Mughals is the romantic and ultimately tragic tale of a passionate love affair that transcended all the cultural, religious and political boundaries of its time. James Achilles Kirkpatrick was the British Resident at the court of Hyderabad when he met Khair un-Nissa - ̯st...
|
|
The Age of Kali
Travels and Encounters in India. The fourth book from the most acclaimed and gifted young travel writer of his generation, author of the bestselling In Xanadu, City of Djinns and From the Holy Mountain. William Dalrymple, who wrote so magically about India in City of Djinns,...
|
|
|
|