Colin Thubron

"Shadow of the Silk Road records a journey along the greatest land route on earth. Colin Thubron travels from the Tomb of the Yellow Emperor to the ancient Mediterranean port of Antioch, going by local bus, truck, car, donkey-cart or camel. He covers 7,000 miles in eight months - in perhaps the most difficult and ambitious journey he has undertaken in forty years of travel."--BOOK JACKET.

"The story is set deep in the Peruvian Andes, where five ill-prepared travellers - men and women with different values, temperaments and motives - find themselves trekking through one of the most exacting and beautiful regions on earth." "It is a journey which may temper or destroy them. They confront not only their relationships with one another, but the enigmas of the country's past, the dangers of its present, and the limitations of their own minds and bodies. The 'lost city' of their destination Vilcabamba, last refuge of the Inca against the Spaniards, subsumed by jungle for four hundred years."--BOOK JACKET.

In The Silk Road, Valerie Hansen describes the archeological finds that revolutionize our understanding of these trade routes. Hansen explores seven oases along the road, from Xi'an to Samarkand, where merchants, envoys, pilgrims, and travelers mixed in cosmopolitan communities, tolerant of religions from Buddhism to Zoroastrianism. There was no single, continuous road, but a chain of markets that traded between east and west. China's main partners were the peoples of modern-day Iran, whose tombs in China reveal much about their Zoroastrian beliefs. Silk was not the most important good on the road; paper had a bigger impact in Europe, while metals, spices, and glass were just as important as silk. Perhaps most significant of all was the road's transmission of ideas, technologies, and artistic motifs. --from publisher description

The young Julius Caesar is serving on board a war galley, gaining a fearsome reputation. Then his ship is captured, and he is ransomed and then abandoned on the north African coast. After gathering a force of men powerful enough not only to gain vengeance on his captors but also to suppress an uprising in Greece, he returns to Rome a hero. But then Julius finds he must fight again. For a new crisis is threatening the city. In the unexpected form of a rebellious gladiator named Sparticus ...

In 1187, during the last years of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, a Knight of the Temple is drawn into the councils of the leper-king of Jerusalem as he does battle with the Sultan.