CROSSING TIME ZONES
Currently viewing the tag: "History & heritage"
Baja California is a land of striking contrasts: deep blue seas and arid brown deserts, a seeming barrenness that, upon closer look, reveals an abundance of life. During my recent visit to the Loreto area I was continuously reminded of other places – the landscapes and plant life recalled the two years I spent in [...]
Of all the archaeological sites I’ve visited in Egypt, one of my absolute favorites is the magnificent temple at Luxor, particularly after the sun has gone down. It’s impressive enough in daylight, but the nighttime illumination adds warmth to the stone, and the shadows bring the intricately carved hieroglyphics into sharper contrast. With the golden [...]
Of all the castles I saw during my 2010 trip to Scotland, one of the most evocative was Kilchurn Castle in Argyll. Part of that was due to the castle itself, a picturesque 15th-century ruin situated on a marshy tongue of land jutting into Loch Awe. Part of it was due to the weather, a [...]
There’s a lot of coverage in the media about threats to different ecosystems around the world – not to mention the planet-wide threat of global warming – but except on rare occasions, the problems facing irreplaceable cultural heritage sites tend to garner much less attention. “Coral reefs, the Amazon, and polar bears are getting a [...]
I recently finished reading Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire by Alex von Tunzelmann, about the defining event in twentieth-century Indian history: the country’s 1947 independence from Britain and partition into the two separate nations of Hindu-majority India and Muslim-dominated Pakistan. Von Tunzelmann, a young British historian, tells the story [...]
