Gatecrashing Paradise

Away from the five-star hotels and beyond luxury hideaways, Tom Chesshyre travels to see the real, unexplored Maldives, skirting around the archipelago's periphery, staying at simple guesthouses, and using cargo ships and ferries. He discovers that beyond the glossy brochures lies an almost undiscovered country that is brimming with life, yet also a paradise teetering on the brink of trouble. In the Maldives outsiders used to be banned from islands not officially endorsed as tourist resorts, but now a thousand sandy shores can be visited in this remote nation deep in the Indian Ocean the flattest on Earth. This is island-hopping for the twenty-first century, sailing around 600 miles of the most beautiful islands and atolls on Earth, often to communities that have not seen an outsider for decades, ...and gatecrashing the odd posh hotel.

Author travels to see the real, unexplored Maldives, one of the most beautiful places on earth, recently opened to tourists..

‘Rich and valuable’ ANJAN SUNDARAM ‘Honest ... written in sharp, rippling prose’ ANDREW FIDEL FERNANDO ‘A brave and timely effort’ JASON BURKE ‘Immersive and eye-opening’ HASSAN UGAIL ‘A moving, personal and heartfelt tale of the real Maldives: far deeper and more sinister waters than the azure lagoons of the resorts for which it is famed’ JJ ROBINSON In the autumn of 2011, the postman-turned-journalist Daniel Bosley embarked on an unexpected adventure which started as an internship in London’s Maldives High Commission – the diplomatic mission of the Indian Ocean tourism hotspot. Little did he know that he would soon set off on an odyssey through an imperilled island nation undergoing one of the most tumultuous periods in its history. Over the next seven years, Bosley worked as a journalist in the Maldives, reporting on its volatile political landscape and shattering the picture-perfect view of this supposed paradise. Taking us into a nation of a thousand isles, he reveals a shaded past of sultans, imperialists and Western explorers before a modern-day dictatorship was finally overturned by a democracy that immediately plunged into turmoil. While dissenters and intrepid reporters faced abduction, imprisonment, and even death, the climate crisis and Islamist zealots posed ever greater threats to the country’s vulnerable environment and its ancient culture. As the editor of the Maldives’ main English-language news website, Bosley witnessed some of these events first-hand, his personal distress assuaged only by the love and hope he would come to find – against all odds – within these isolated atoll communities. Richly observed and infused with empathy and essential humour, Descent into Paradise thoroughly alters our understanding of the Maldives, a place where magical waters and surreal skies hide unthinkable dangers even as the struggle for justice risks submersion.

Why do people love trains so much? Tom Chesshyre is on a mission to find the answer by experiencing the world through train travel—on both epic and everyday rail routes, aboard every type of ride, from steam locomotives to bullet trains, meeting a cast of memorable characters who share a passion for train travel. Join him on the rails and off the beaten track as he embarks on an exhilarating whistle-stop tour around the globe, from Sri Lanka to Iran via Crewe, Inverness, the Australian outback, and beyond.

Authors, artists and amblers have always felt the pull of the Thames, and now Tom Chesshyre is following in their footsteps. He’s walking more than 200 miles from the Cotswolds to the North Sea. Seeing some familiar sights through new eyes, Chesshyre explores the living present and remarkable past of England’s longest and most iconic river.

Woodstock University addresses the educational interface of 1969’s iconic Woodstock Festival, as a number of its attendees and performers would later become academics 'with a touch of gray,' and it also considers the role of music in Woodstock’s legacy as the embodiment of 1960s countercultural idealism, escapism, and activism. A self-mythologizing event, as indicated by congratulatory stage announcements, Woodstock made a real-time claim for its own historic importance. Elevated by its remarkable (and in some cases doctored) audio, celluloid, and oral history afterlives, Woodstock would enhance the aura of rock star celebrity, and in the process expose the counterculture as a cash cow and weaponize the machinery of corporate rock. The essays in this collection are the participant observations of performers and attendees of Woodstock and related festivals, and also the reflections of cultural historians on aspects of the festival, its representation, and its ambiguous legacy. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Popular Music and Society.