A timely account of Dan Cruikshank's quest for fragile treasures and wonders of the world caught up in the senselessness of human conflict.
Ugliness and beauty, war and wonderment, risk, heroism and calm, this book is a timely account of Dan's quest for fragile treasures and wonders of the world caught up in conflict.
"I'd never felt so troubled but alive as I did in Afghanistan," says Dan. "The awful drama of beauty and history being caught up in the maelstrom of war is something we have to face in a world more riven than ever before - the treasures of the world we've forgotten because they've been caught up in human conflict."
Travelling in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel and Palestine, Dan writes a personal account of cultures in extremis and in doing so also uncovers the spirit and history of the people he meets on his journeys. In Iraq under the threat of war, he takes us to relics of great civilisations - Mesopotamia, Assyria, Samaria and Babylon - which are home to such wonders as the Hanging Gardens created by King Nebuchadnezzar and the largest single-span arch of the ancient world on the bank of the river Tigris.
In Afghanistan, he searches for the country's great treasures and journeys out into the country in the aftermath of war in 2001. He discovers the heroism of individuals who saved many artworks, but also finds the remains of the destruction of the Taliban, including the two giant Buddhas. Carved into the mountainside of the Hindu Kush Range on the Silk Route in the second century, they survived until March 2001 when the Taliban destroyed them.
However, Dan's account is also one of hope. While he celebrates miraculous survivals in the face of war, he also reveals how even when bombs and bullets have done their worst, cultures live on in the hearts and indestructible imaginations of the people.
