Travellers Through Time

An accessible history of the Roma people in England told from the inside. The Romany people have been variously portrayed as exotic strangers or as crude, violent, delinquent “gypsies.” For the first time, this book describes the real history of the Romany in England from the inside. Drawing on new archival and first-hand research, Jeremy Harte vividly describes the itinerant life of the Romany as well as their artistic traditions, unique language, and flamboyant ceremonies. Travelers through Time tells the dramatic story of Romany life on the British margins from Tudor times through today, filled with vivid insights into the world of England’s large Romany population.

In the late eighteenth century and throughout the nineteenth century, an unprecedented number of Indigenous people – especially Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabeg, and Cree – travelled to Britain and other parts of the world. Who were these transatlantic travellers, where were they going, and what were they hoping to find? Travellers through Empire unearths the stories of Indigenous peoples including Mississauga Methodist missionary and Ojibwa chief Reverend Peter Jones, the Scots-Cherokee officer and interpreter John Norton, Catherine Sutton, a Mississauga woman who advocated for her people with Queen Victoria, E. Pauline Johnson, the Mohawk poet and performer, and many others. Cecilia Morgan retraces their voyages from Ontario and the northwest fur trade and details their efforts overseas, which included political negotiations with the Crown, raising funds for missionary work, receiving an education, giving readings and performances, and teaching international audiences about Indigenous cultures. As they travelled, these remarkable individuals forged new families and friendships and left behind newspaper interviews, travelogues, letters, and diaries that provide insights into their cross-cultural encounters. Chronicling the emotional ties, contexts, and desires for agency, resistance, and negotiation that determined their diverse experiences, Travellers through Empire provides surprising vantage points on First Nations travels and representations in the heart of the British Empire.

A “vigorous and vivid and feisty” portrait of a traditional Scottish subculture from an insider (Dundee Courier & Advertiser). Scottish gypsies, known as travellers, have wandered Scotland’s roads and byways for centuries, and their turbulent history is captured in this passionate book by Jess Smith, the bestselling author of Jessie’s Journey. This is less a conventional history than a personal pilgrimage through the stories, songs, and culture of a people for whom freedom is more important than security and a campfire under the stars is preferable to a warm hearth within stone walls. Settled society has always discriminated against travellers, and Jess tells shocking stories of bullying, violence, the enforced break-up of families, and separate schooling. But drawing on her own and her family’s experiences, she also captures the magic and drama of days wandering the roads and working the land, and brings to life the travellers’ rich and vibrant traditions.

Best Books of 2016 BOSTON GLOBE * THE ATLANTIC From the acclaimed bestselling author of The Information and Chaos comes this enthralling history of time travel—a concept that has preoccupied physicists and storytellers over the course of the last century. James Gleick delivers a mind-bending exploration of time travel—from its origins in literature and science to its influence on our understanding of time itself. Gleick vividly explores physics, technology, philosophy, and art as each relates to time travel and tells the story of the concept's cultural evolutions—from H.G. Wells to Doctor Who, from Proust to Woody Allen. He takes a close look at the porous boundary between science fiction and modern physics, and, finally, delves into what it all means in our own moment in time—the world of the instantaneous, with its all-consuming present and vanishing future.

First book of a trilogy full of action, adventure, science and discovery. Matt, Emily and Jonathan use a time machine to return to the Titanic determined to prevent its sinking. Can they save the great ship, and more importantly, can they get back to the present time?

The Victorians, perhaps more than any Britons before them, were diggers and sifters of the past. Though they were not the first to be fascinated by history, the intensity and range of their preoccupations with the past were unprecedented and of lasting importance. The Victorians paved the way for our modern disciplines, discovered the primeval monsters we now call the dinosaurs, and built many of Britain’s most important national museums and galleries. To a large degree, they created the perceptual frameworks through which we continue to understand the past. Out of their discoveries, new histories emerged, giving rise to fresh debates, while seemingly well-known histories were thrown into confusion by novel tools and methods of scrutiny. If in the eighteenth century the study of the past had been the province of a handful of elites, new technologies and economic development in the nineteenth century meant that the past, in all its brilliant detail, was for the first time the property of the many, not the few. Time Travelers is a book about the myriad ways in which Victorians approached the past, offering a vivid picture of the Victorian world and its historical obsessions.

When physicist Michael Shelborne mysteriously vanishes, his son Shel discovers that he had constructed a time travel device. Fearing his father may be stranded in time—or worse—Shel enlists the aid of linguist Dave MacElroy to accompany him on the rescue mission. Their journey through history takes them from the enlightenment of Renaissance Italy through the American Wild West to the civil-right upheavals of the 20th century. Along the way, they encounter a diverse cast of historical greats, sometimes in unexpected situations. Yet the elder Shelborne remains elusive. And then Shel violates his agreement with Dave not to visit the future. There he makes a devastating discovery that sends him fleeing back through the ages, and changes his life forever.

A guide to London that takes you back in time. This is a fascinating and unique guide to the capital that takes the reader off the beaten track and into unexplored territory through time to six key periods in the history of London. From Shakespeare to the plague, medieval London to the swinging 60s, readers can totally immerse themselves in the sights, sounds and smells of our capital. After reading this book you'll never rush through the streets of Covent Garden or St Paul's again without pausing for at least a moment to think of all the mad characters and epic lives that ran through the same streets centuries before.