AN ARABIAN JOURNEY:

Not many people would choose to tour what is arguably the most dangerous part of the world amidst what was (up until recent events) the deadliest war of the 21st century, but that is exactly what award-winning explorer, photographer and author Levison Wood did. Setting out in September 2017 from Al-Malikiyah in Syria, just 2 miles from the Turkish border and 160 miles from Raqqa, then the last stronghold of ISIS, his was a 5,000 mile trek through the most violently contested region on the planet. For six months he travelled, from ISIS occupied Iraq, through Kuwait and the jagged coastlines of the Emirates and Oman, across civil-war-torn Yemen and on to Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel before eventually ending on the Mediterranean Sea in Lebanon. Geographically he encountered some of the harshest and most beautiful environments on earth, from snow-capped mountains to lifeless, scorched deserts, photographed and reproduced in plenty here, but it is the people he meets that force us to reconsider our perceptions. Here are Kurdish freedom fighters in Iraqi Kurdistan, Arab Christians in Palestine, fishermen in Oman, border guards of all hues and allegiances among many others. Through the relationships he forges with those he meets he examines how the region has changed over thousands of years and in just a few years, bearing witness to an amazing mosaic of a land. At once a thrilling (and often quite terrifying) personal journey and a skilled work of cultural reportage, this is a breathtaking chronicle of the root of all civilisation, one that is at times uplifting and also shockingly heart-breaking. 354pp paperback with 16 pages of superb colour photos, US edition.