Ghost Empire

Richard Fidler

ABC Books/Harper Collins

Beloved ABC broadcaster and bestselling author of Ghost Empire and Saga Land, Richard Fidler is back with a personally curated history of the magical city that is Prague. In 1989, Richard Fidler was living in London as part of the provocative Australian comedy trio The Doug Anthony All Stars when revolution broke out across Europe. Excited by this galvanising historic, human, moment, he travelled to Prague, where a decrepit police state was being overthrown by crowds of ecstatic citizens. His experience of the Velvet Revolution never let go of him. Thirty years later Fidler returns to Prague to uncover the glorious and grotesque history of Europe's most instagrammed and uncanny city: a jumble of gothic towers, baroque palaces and zig-zag lanes that has survived plagues, pogroms, terror and Soviet tanks. Founded in the ninth Century, Prague gave the world the golem, the robot, and the world's biggest statue of Stalin, a behemoth that killed almost everyone who touched it. Fidler tells the story of the reclusive emperor who brought the world's most brilliant minds to Prague Castle to uncover the occult secrets of the universe. He explores the Black Palace, the wartime headquarters of the SS, and he meets victims of the communist secret police. Reaching back into Prague's mythic past, he finds the city's founder, the pagan priestess Libussa who prophesised: I see a city whose glory will touch the stars. Following the story of Prague from its origins in medieval darkness to its uncertain present, Fidler does what he does so well - curates an absolutely engaging and compelling history of a place. You will learn things you never knew, with a tour guide who is erudite, inquisitive, and the best storyteller you could have as your companion. PRAISE FOR GHOST EMPIRE: 'Fidler displays great charm in the telling of his tale, spicing it with delicious gossip.' - New York Times Book Review '... thanks to the stylish cleverness of an exceptionally curious and talented man, we can feast on what strange magic the city brought-and still brings today-to the world beyond. I am speechless with admiration.' - Simon Winchester 'Fidler's story leaves its readers with a sense of faith in the renewing, illuminating, social powers of historical narrative.' - Sydney Morning Herald

The Golden Maze: A Biography of Prague

History

Europe

ABC Books

A new friendship. An unforgettable journey. A beautiful and bloody history. This is Iceland as you've never read it before ... Broadcaster Richard Fidler and author Kári Gíslason are good friends. They share a deep attachment to the sagas of Iceland - the true stories of the first Viking families who settled on that remote island in the Middle Ages.These are tales of blood feuds, of dangerous women, and people who are compelled to kill the ones they love the most. The sagas are among the greatest stories ever written, but the identity of their authors is largely unknown. Together, Richard and Kári travel across Iceland, to the places where the sagas unfolded a thousand years ago. They cross fields, streams and fjords to immerse themselves in the folklore of this fiercely beautiful island. And there is another mission: to resolve a longstanding family mystery - a gift from Kari's Icelandic father that might connect him to the greatest of the saga authors.

Saga Land: The Island of Stories at the Edge of the World: The Island Stories at the Edge of the World

Biographies & Memoirs

Kari Gislason

Historical

The Book Of Roads And Kingdoms

Middle East

The Golden Maze

ABC Books AU

A lost imperial city, full of wonder and marvels. An empire that was the largest the world had ever seen, established with astonishing speed. A people obsessed with travel, knowledge and adventure.\nWhen Richard Fidler came across the account of Ibn Fadlan - a tenth-century Arab diplomat who travelled all the way from Baghdad to the cold riverlands of modern-day Russia - he was struck by how modern his voice was, like that of a twenty-first century time-traveller dropped into a medieval wilderness. On further investigation, Fidler discovered this was just one of countless reports from Arab and Persian travellers of their adventures in medieval China, India, Africa and Byzantium. Put together, he saw these stories formed a crazy quilt picture of a lost world.\nThe Book of Roads & Kingdoms is the story of the medieval wanderers who travelled out to the edges of the known world during Islam's fabled Golden Age; an era when the caliphs of Baghdad presided over a dominion greater than the Roman Empire at its peak, stretching from North Africa to India. Imperial Baghdad, founded as the 'City of Peace', quickly became the biggest and richest metropolis in the world. Standing atop one of the city's four gates, its founder proclaimed: Here is the Tigris River, and nothing stands between it and China.\nIn a flourishing culture of science, literature and philosophy, the citizens of Baghdad were fascinated by the world and everything in it. Inspired by their Prophet's commandment to seek knowledge all over the world, these traders, diplomats, soldiers and scientists left behind the cosmopolitan pleasures of Baghdad to venture by camel, horse and boat into the unknown. Those who returned from these distant foreign lands wrote accounts of their adventures, both realistic and fantastical - tales of wonder and horror and delight.\nFidler expertly weaves together these beautiful and thrilling pictures of a dazzling lost world with the story of an empire's rise and utterly devastating fall.\nPraise for Ghost Empire\n'...thanks to the stylish cleverness of an exceptionally curious and talented man, we can feast on what strange magic the city brought - and still brings today - to the world beyond. I am speechless with admiration. - Simon Winchester\n'Fidler's story leaves its readers with a sense of faith in the renewing, illumination, social powers of historical narrative.' - Sydney Morning Herald\nPraise for The Golden Maze\n'The times, the places and the people are vibrant, arresting and breathing ... This is the magic and power of this work.' - Favel Parrett, The Age

The Book of Roads and Kingdoms

Traverse City, Michigan: A Historical Narrative, 1850-2013

Ghost Empire is a rare treasure—an utterly captivating blend of the historical and the contemporary, realised by a master storyteller.
In 2014, Richard Fidler and his son Joe made a journey to Istanbul. 
Fired by Richard's passion for the rich history of the dazzling Byzantine Empire—centred around the legendary Constantinople—we are swept into some of the most extraordinary tales in history. The clash of civilisations, the fall of empires, the rise of Christianity, revenge, lust, murder. Turbulent stories from the past are brought vividly to life at the same time as a father navigates the unfolding changes in his relationship with his son. Ghost Empire is a revelation: a beautifully written ode to a lost civilisation, and a warmly observed father-son adventure far from home.

Bolinda Audio

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Books by Richard Fidler