Taras Grescoe plunges into the ruts where the tourists are thickest, starting at the tip of Spain's Land's End and finishing, nine months later, on the soldier-patrolled beaches of China's End of the Earth. Along the way, he crosses the entire Eurasian landmass, experiencing all sorts of travel such as all-inclusive resorts, pilgrimages, and bus tours.
In his quest for the perfect seafood dish, Grescoe nets some shocking discoveries about the fish we eat, where they come from, and the often slimy inner workings of the multi-billion dollar industry that depends on them.
For referendum-weary English Canadians, Quebec is an enigma wrapped in a yawn, so Grescoe explores a francophone country-and-western festival in rural Mauricie, deconstructs a Montreal Canadiens hockey game, covers the stunning diversity of Quebec's newspapers, and dismantles Bombardier snowmobiles, all while meeting Mohawk Warriors, Yiddish-speaking French Canadians, and the UFO-obsessed followers of Raël.
As oil prices soar and suburbs continue to sprawl, Grescoe hits the commuter road in a global quest to understand and illuminate the challenges of the post-automobile age. Ultimately, Straphanger’s subject is the city, and it offers a global tour of alternatives to car-based living, told through encounters with bicycle commuters, subway engineers, idealistic mayors and disillusioned trolley campaigners.
Emily 'Mickey' Hahn was a legendary New Yorker journalist whose vivid writing played a crucial role in opening Western eyes to the realities of life in China. At the height of the Depression, Hahn arrived in Shanghai after a disappointing affair, and became absorbed into the social swirl of the expats drawn to pre-war China, among them Ernest Hemingway, Martha Gellhorn, Harold Acton, and gangster Morris 'Two-Gun' Cohen.
Arrivée après la crise de 1929, Emily Hahn, célèbre journaliste du New Yorker surnommée Mickey, fréquente le milieu mondain et croise Ernest Hemingway et Harold Acton. Elle tombe amoureuse du poète Zau Sinmay qui l'emmène explorer la véritable Shanghai, occupée par les Japonais. Une chronique de la réalité de la vie chinoise avant l'arrivée au pouvoir des communistes.
L'histoire de Lauro de Bosis, poète et aviateur, fils d'un aristocrate italien, qui, en 1931, a largué des tracts antifascistes au-dessus de Rome, poussant la population à désobéir, avant de disparaître en mer. Ce récit décrit l'atmosphère des années 1920-1930 en Italie ainsi que les sentiments ambigus de certains Etats, artistes et intellectuels à l'égard de Benito Mussolini.
