PASSAGE EAST

PASSAGE EAST   Synopsis: In 1814 the first shipment of cotton piece goods left Lancashire, England, for Calcutta, India, fully opening the eyes of the West to the riches of Eastern culture. Over the course of a century, a tremendous commerce opened between East and West, carried on the decks and in the holds of great sailing ships, which would be replaced by steam-powered vessels. The six-month voyage around the Cape of Good Hope, Africa, gave way to a quicker and less perilous route through the Suez Canal in 1869. Camel trains, railroads, and ships kept the lifelines of the British Empire open. This book brings to life this remarkable era of passenger, cargo, and mail travel between Europe and the Middle East, India, and the Far East. John Maxtone-Graham has devoted his writing largely to social and maritime life on the North Atlantic. His first book, The Only Way to Cross, is still in print more than 20 years after its release in 1972. Ian Marshall's work has been shown at the Navy Museum, Washington, DC; the Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth, England; and the Imperial War Museum. Review: "The photographs and Marshall's own sketches are carefully and intelligently mixed with the text of this entertaining work. Also important is the substantive essay contributed by the famous marine historian John Maxtone-Graham, who has written much about the Atlantic crossing but now offers his own reflections on the 'passage east.'...All in all, this is a worthy work. It is simultaneously a coffee-table book that we would all like to receive from a rich uncle, and a work of superb artistry and scholarship that illuminates one of the fascinating aspects of intercultural traffic during the past century....[T]his is not just a nostalgic essay in imperial, Western history; it is a beautifully captured commentary on part of our disappearing century."   Please Note: These are closeout books.  They might have scuffs and scratches but lets get realistic they are meant to be read!