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In this third and final installment, Professor Richard Fortey travels to Madeira to examine what happens to a volcanic island as it nears the end of its life-cycle and starts sinking back into the sea. Here, in the island's laurisilva forest, he examines the remains of an ancient forest that once carpeted all of Europe; island lizards that live to be four times older than their mainland counterparts, and the largest wolf spider in Europe. With the...

Hippolyte Adolphe Taine (21 April 1828 5 March 1893) was a French critic and historian. He was the chief theoretical influence of French naturalism, a major proponent of sociological positivism, and one of the first practitioners of historicist criticism. Literary historicism as a critical movement has been said to originate with him. Taine is particularly remembered for his three-pronged approach to the contextual study of a work of art, based...

William Henry Bartlett (March 26, 1809 September 13, 1854) was a British artist, best known for his numerous steel engravings. Bartlett was born in Kentish Town, London in 1809. He was apprenticed to John Britton (1771 1857), and became one of the foremost illustrators of topography of his generation. He travelled throughout Britain, and in the mid and late 1840s he travelled extensively in the Balkans and the Middle East. He made four visits to...

The Indian Subcontinent is romantic, remote and mysterious. From the plains of Pakistan to the foothills of the Himalaya, from Northern India and Rajasthan to Tamil Nadu in the south, this vast melting pot of civilizations, religions, cultures and landscapes has seen some of the greatest artistic golden ages on earth. This series examines the Indus Valley civilizations, Tamil Nadu-land of the temples-and the Mughal Empire, three very different dynasties...

Like many others, around the time Elizabeth Gilbert turned 30, she went through an early-onslaught midlife crisis. Although she had everything an educated, ambitious American woman was supposed to want, including a husband, a home, and a successful career as a magazine writer, she was consumed with panic, grief, and confusion. The celebrated author of The Last American creates an irrestible, candid, and eloquent account of her yearlong worldwide pursuit...

From avalanches to glaciers, from seals to snowflakes, and from Shackleton's expedition to "The Year Without Summer," Bill Streever journeys through history, myth, geography, and ecology in a year-long search for cold--real, icy, 40-below cold. In July he finds it while taking a dip in a 35-degree Arctic swimming hole; in September while excavating our planet's ancient and not so ancient ice ages; and in October while exploring hibernation habits...