The Green Road Into the Trees: An Exploration of England

Award-winning British travel writer Hugh Thomson explores the most exotic and foreign country of them all -- his own. From the very centre of England -- literally, as his village is furthest from the sea -- Hugh travels to its outermost edges. The Green Road into the Trees is a journey made rich by the characters he meets along the way. And the ways he takes are the old ways, the drover-paths and tracks, the paths and ditches half covered by bramble and tunnelled by alder, beech and oak: the trails that can still be traced by those who know where to look. Just as in his acclaimed book about Peru, The White Rock, Hugh shows how older, half-forgotten cultures lie much closer to the surface than we may think. In recent years, archaeologists have uncovered remarkable findings about the Celts, Saxons and Vikings that have often yet to reach the wider public. Travelling along the Icknield Way, Hugh passes the great prehistoric monuments of Maiden Castle, Stonehenge and Avebury, before ending at the Wash near Seahenge. By taking a 400 mile journey from coast to coast, through both the sacred and profane landscapes of ancient England, Hugh casts unexpected light -- and humour -- on the way we live now.

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Thomson, Hugh

Pets & Animal Care

WINDMILL

One Man and a Mule: Across England with a Pack Mule

In the Middle Ages, mules were used to transport goods across Britain. Strong, sturdy and able to carry a good 160 lbs of weight, they made ideal walking companions (as long as you didn’t ask them to do anything they disapproved of). 
Now Hugh Thomson has revived that ancient tradition. Taking his cue from Robert Louis Stevenson's 19th-century bestseller Travels With a Donkey, Hugh leads his trusty mule Jethro across England from the Lake District to the Yorkshire Moors, using old drovers’ roads that have largely passed into disrepair. His previous journeys have resulted in acclaimed books on Peru, Mexico and the Indian Himalaya, and more recently on southern England for the prize-winning The Green Road into the Trees. As he crosses the north, he combines his trademark wit and insight with a lyrical intensity about the history and the landscape; and it is his encounters with the people he meets along the way which bring that landscape to life in a manner few other contemporary travel writers attempt. “Everywhere Thomson goes, he finds good stories to tell.” New York Times Book Review

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Produced in collaboration with the Royal Geographic Society, this illuminating volume looks at the ways in which maps facilitated, dictated, and directed the burgeoning travel industry. Arranged chronologically from the seventeenth century on, and featuring the personal anecdotes, diary extracts, and photographs of intrepid early travelers, this exquisite collection of maps traces the evolution of tourism. Part travel guide, part social history, it charts a course across the globe on the first steam voyages, captures the romance of the golden age of train travel, and delves into the very heart of why we journey to new lands: for adventure; for education; for escapism; for pilgrimage. As it stretches from the elite realms of the Grand Tour to beyond the boundaries of the known world, this book showcases the progress in cartography, and reveals how people used maps to navigate their immediate environment and understand their place in the world. In looking back, it considers the shape of global tourism today, reflecting on just how accessible—or hostile—the world has become.

The Map Tour: A History of Tourism Told Through Rare Maps, From the Grand Tour to Globalization

History

World

Andre Deutsch

Nanda Devi: A Journey to the Last Sanctuary

Surrounded by 20,000 foot peaks which effectively seal off the mountain at their center, the Nanda Devi Sanctuary was virtually impenetrable. But in 1934 Eric Shipton and Bill Tilman made the first of their great Himalayan expeditions by forcing a way up the river gorge. In 2000, the Sanctuary was entered for one single visit. Hugh Thomson was offered a place on this unique expedition led by Eric Shipton's son, John Shipton and the great Indian mountaineer, Colonel Kumar. This journey forms the basis of the book. Woven through it are all the amazing stories that surround the mountain—a powerful blend of myths and politics.

Nanda Devi: A Journey To The Last Sanctuary

Travel

Asia

Orion Pub Co

A special illustrated edition of Hiram Bingham's classic work captures all the magnificence and mystery of the amazing sites he uncovered. In the earliest days of the 20th century, Bingham ventured into the wild and then unknown country of the Eastern Peruvian Andes. In 1911, he came upon the fabulous Inca city that ultimately made him famous: Machu Picchu. And his achievement did not end there, because in the space of one short season he went on to discover two more lost cities: Vitcos, where the last of the Emperors was assassinated, and another settlement buried deep below the cloud-forest of the jungle.

Lost City of the Incas. The Story of Machu Picchu and its Builders

BINGHAM, HIRAM

Americas

Weidenfeld and Nicholson

The White Rock: An Exploration of the Inca Heartland

The white rock: An exploration of the Inca heartland

Weidenfeld&Nicolson

An account of Hugh Thomson's first wild adventure in Mexico at the age of 18 illustrates why it ignited his love for Latin America, and is then followed by his subsequent exploration 30 years later of the country, its people, and its history. Revealing a much more dangerous side of Mexico than that seen by package vacationers, this book takes the reader from the badlands of Chihuahua to the forests of the Yucatan. It ends deep in the Mexican jungle, face to face with one the most enigmatic and least understood cultures on the planet—the Maya—with a sense of humility at how little we still know about the pre-Columbian past. Similar to The Motorcycle Diaries, by throwing himself on the kindness, hospitality, and mercy of the Mexicans he met (or crashed into), Hugh was given an unusual and peculiarly vulnerable insight into Mexico. He returns many years later with a deeper understanding and the ability to explore the deep roots of pre-Columbian culture within Mexican life and to appreciate how much archaeologists have revealed about the Maya and the Aztecs in just the last few years.

Tequila Oil: Getting Lost in Mexico

Travel Writing

Orion Publishing

One the Victorian era's most prominent book illustrators, Hugh Thomson is especially well known for his sensitive renderings of scenes from the works of Jane Austen. This deluxe hardcover volume features an original selection of Thomson's illustrations for the classic 1894 edition of Pride and Prejudice. Each of the 58 images has been individually colored to complement the style and sensibility of the artist’s pen-and-ink drawings. Austen fans, lovers of Victoriana, and all who appreciate the art of book illustration will prize this handsome volume.

The Illustrated Pride and Prejudice Companion: Illustrations by Hugh Thomson

Arts & Photography

Individual Artists

Dover Publications

Phoenix

Imagine that all the great discoveries of Ancient Egypt had happened in the last few years...and you will have some conception of the great excitement over recent finds in Peru
Peru wears its ancient cultures wrapped around in layers, like one of the mummified bodies so well preserved by the nitrates of its deserts. After his acclaimed book on the Incas, The White Rock, Hugh Thomson unwraps those layers to show how civilisation emerged so early and so spectacularly in this toughest and most arid of terrains.
Many of the extraordinary cultures of Ancient Peru, from the lines of Nasca to the temple-cult of Chavín, buried in the mountains, and the great pyramids of the coast, have only started to give up their secrets and antiquity in just the last few years. 
Hugh Thomson has been at the forefront of some of these discoveries himself, having made headlines with his work near Machu Picchu. Now he takes the reader on a journey back from the world of the Incas to the first dawn of Andean civilisation, to give an immensely personal and accessible guide to the wonders that have been revealed.

Cochineal Red

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Books by Thomson, Hugh