News from Tartary by Peter Fleming

News from Tartary by Peter Fleming

THERE IS NOT much to say about this book by way of introduction. It describes an undeservedly successful attempt to travel overland from Peking in China to Kashmir in India. The journey took seven months and covered about 3,500 miles...With masterly understatement Peter Fleming begins this account of what is one of the true epics of adventure. With his companion, Eva Maillart, and motivated largely by curiosity, they set out across a China torn by civil war to journey through Sinkiang to British India. It had been eight years since a traveller had crossed Sinkiang; in between times those who had entered this inhospitable and politically volatile area seldom left alive. This, China's most westerly province, was under the control of a rebel warlord supported by Stalin's Red Army. Within it there was yet further civil war and the southern oases through which Fleming and Maillart had to travel were under the control of yet another rebel force. Entering the province by a little known and almost lethal route and following the path of the Silk Road, they ended up in Kashgar before crossing the Pamirs to India. Beautifully written and superbly observed, this is not simply a superb account of a part of the world few of us will ever see, but also a marvellous insight into the last days of the Great Game, when Britain and Russia still faced each other across a Central Asia in a state of anarchy. It is a magnificent travelogue by one of the last and greatest adventures of Empire.

'Its entertainment value is immenseIt will arouse great fury and cause much pleasure - an epic of adventure' - Harold Nicolson 'It confirmed Fleming's place in the front rank of travel writers... no modern work of travel has given me more pleasure... I have read it more times than I can remember' Daily Telegraph

PETER FLEMING, THE brother of Ian Fleming, was born in 1907. After a stint on the Spectator as a literary editor he had his first taste of adventure on a trip to South America in the early 1930s. He travelled widely in China during the 1930s, where he reported on the civil war there. During World War II he was involved in intelligence operations around the world. During the 1950s and 1960s he produced a string of works of popular history. He died in 1971.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781843410034
ISBN 10	1843410036
Title	News from Tartary
Author	Peter Fleming
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Birlinn General
Year published	2001-11-23
Number of pages	394
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable