The world was first unified 1,000 years ago.
When Leif the Lucky and his Viking explorers linked Europe and America with their settlement at Vinland it marked a profound change in the world. Suddenly, almost every region on earth was in touch with its neighbours, spanning continents and oceans.
For a few years, it was in theory possible to send a message all the way round the world. At the time, no one could possibly have known this, or what it would lead to. But in hindsight the early 11th century gives us a brief hint of today’s global unity.
But what was the world like 1,000 years ago?
What would a traveller have seen as they ventured across the continents?
John Man circles the globe at the turn of the millennium to explore its major cultures, revealing many surprises. Islam was confident and curious, Europe was just awakening after its dark-age slumber, and Asia was home to the world’s most refined civilizations, while some aboriginal peoples were modifying age-old ways in Australia, Africa and the Americas.
A Viking Odyssey is a fascinating and sumptuous account of the world in the year 1,000, bringing to life the diversity of human cultures, from hunter-gatherers to sophisticated city-dwellers, and the links between them. This book is a revised edition of Atlas of the Year 1,000, with new contributions from John Man.
“A splendidly conceived and executed idea.” Dr. John Roberts, The New Penguin History of the World.

“Just brilliant. A real contribution to world history.” Prof. Robert Moore, University of Newcastle.

“A splendid accomplishment.” Dean R. Snow, Professor and Head of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University.

“A wealth of fascinating information.” Ray Inskeep, formerly Professor of Archaeology, University of Cape Town.

“A fascinating snapshot of all corners of the world at the dawn of the global age” David Northrup, Dept of History, Boston College, USA.

“A fresh look at the world at the dawn of the past millennium”. Science News.

“The most original of all the spate of books that came out during the millennium.” Michael Palin.
JOHN MAN is a bestselling historian and traveller specializing in Central Asia (in particular Mongolia). Genghis Khan: Life, Death and Resurrection is a best-seller in 21 languages. His other books include Attila the Hun, Kublai Khan, The Terracotta Army, and The Great Wall. In 2014, Xanadu was published in the US as Marco Polo, to accompany the Netflix TV series. His most recent book, Saladin, appeared in April 2015.

Gail Muller was told she’d be in a wheelchair by the age of forty. At forty-one she set out to hike one of the world’s toughest treks, The Appalachian Trail – a 2,200-mile journey that would help her reclaim her life and heal her mind and body. An inspiring, moving and uplifting memoir for fans of Cheryl Strayed’s Wild and Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love.
Read what everyone is saying about Unlost:
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‘Had me hooked from the beginning…This book is for so many people…it's fun and interesting and the various trail families and characters are terrific… a gem of a book.’ Goodreads reviewer, ?????
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‘Inspirational… made me snort or chuckle - or suck in my breath. I read the book in more or less a day - I just had to consume it… a joy to read.’ NetGalley reviewer, ?????
‘Gail writes with humour, heart and passion.’ Giovanna Fletcher, Sunday Times #1 bestselling author
‘I loved this book so much. I was so invested from the very start… Was sad for this one to end! Goodreads reviewer, ?????
‘Loved this open and honest book! It was so raw and real you feel like you get to know the author like a friend. I loved hearing about her adventures and life.’ Goodreads reviewer, ?????
‘Inspiring… illustrates the power of the great outdoors and the positive effects it can have on body and mind.’ Jordan Wylie, Adventurer and Bestselling Author

History is based on choices, not truth.
The way we see things now is not always how they looked at the time. The task Robert Kee set himself in his chronicle of 1939 was to cut across the demarcation lines of history, to capture the way people perceived the events of the time as they unfolded.
Turning to the newspapers of the day, Kee revives for us a world in which the Second World War is not yet a certainty — a world which still has countless other concerns which have not yet been dwarfed into insignificance by the European emergency — a world in which Chamberlain is still to many a credible leader, and Churchill and Roosevelt, though giants in waiting, are less than monumental.
In this thrilling account Kee explores life in the calm before the storm of 1939. Did the people of Britain see war coming? Or did the world change overnight, from stability to deadly conflict?
Praise for 1939: The World We Left Behind:
‘Authentic, absorbing … and worth any number of conventional histories’ - The Times
Robert Kee, born in 1919, sat for his Oxford History degree in the summer of 1940, when France was falling. He joined the RAF the day after taking his last paper, became a bomber pilot, and was shot down and taken prisoner in 1942. After the war he began his journalistic career on Picture Post. He has worked for more than thirty years in radio and television, for both the BBC and ITV. He won the BAFTA Richard Dimbleby Award in 1976.

Paris and London have long held a mutual fascination, and never more so than in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when they both vied to be the world's greatest city.
Each city has been the focus of many books, yet here Jonathan Conlin uncovers the intriguing relationship between them for the first time. It is a history of surprises: Sherlock Holmes was actually French and the can-can was English.
Tales of Two Cities examines and compares six urban spaces – the street, the cemetery, the apartment, the restaurant, the music hall and the nocturnal underworld – and describes how the citizens of Paris and London were the first to create these landmarks of the modern cityscape. By borrowing, imitating and learning from each other they invented the modern metropolis, and so defined urban living for us all.
Praise for Tales of Two Cities:
'Tales of Two Cities allows readers to reconsider what "everybody knows". For, with astonishing ease, Jonathan Conlin performs that most useful, and difficult, of tasks: he makes us see the familiar as though it were new.' - Judith Flanders, Sunday Telegraph
'In Jonathan Conlin's Tales of Two Cities the little acknowledged but hugely significant histoire croisée of two rival metropoles gets a long overdue airing... The greatest compliment one can pay Conlin's book is that it provides endless food for thought.' - The Spectator
'Jonathan Conlin's wonderful new book is a fascinating walk through two of the greatest cities in the world. With admirable skill and a painter's eye, Conlin presents the reader with a richly woven tapestry of stories and events that is mesmerizing to behold. The reader will never think of London or Paris in the same way again.' - Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire
'Conlin provides some striking insights into these two capitals which are, in effect, mirror-images of one another. A thought-provoking glimpse into the history of our own London and its elegant, racy cousin, Paris.' - Catharine Arnold, author of Underworld London
'Full of unexpected facts... Conlin's case studies of possible cultural exchange are both concise and entertaining.' - Miranda Seymour, New York Times
Jonathan Conlin was born in New York but moved to the UK and studied at both Oxford and Cambridge. He has written several books, including Mr Five Per Cent: The Many Lives of Calouste Gulbenkian, the World’s Richest Man, which won the Wadsworth Prize for Business History.