woodys-uk
Price: £47.73
In stock
8 used & new from £3.75
See All Buying Options
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
 
Outposts: Journeys to the Surviving Relics of the British Empire
 
 
Share your own customer images
Search inside this book

Outposts: Journeys to the Surviving Relics of the British Empire (Paperback)

by Simon Winchester (Author)
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

Available from these sellers.


7 new from £11.00 1 used from £3.75
Other Editions: RRP: Our Price: Other Offers:
Hardcover (1st edition) 18 used & new from £0.41
Paperback (New edition) 19 used & new from £0.01
School & Library Binding Order it used
Audio CD 5 used & new from £9.99

Customers Viewing This Page May Be Interested in These Sponsored Links

  (What is this?)
   Are you Ex-Military/Navy? opens new browser window
www.HMForces.co.uk  -  Civilian job boring? Need some excitement? 
  
 

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

The Map That Changed the World: A Tale of Rocks, Ruin and Redemption

The Map That Changed the World: A Tale of Rocks, Ruin and Redemption

by Simon Winchester
4.0 out of 5 stars (28)  £5.99
The Teatime Islands: Adventures in Britain's Faraway Outposts

The Teatime Islands: Adventures in Britain's Faraway Outposts

by Ben Fogle
3.9 out of 5 stars (18)  £6.98
RMS St. Helena and the Atlantic Islands

RMS St. Helena and the Atlantic Islands

by Robert A. Wilson
£9.92
A Crack in the Edge of the World: The Great American Earthquake of 1906

A Crack in the Edge of the World: The Great American Earthquake of 1906

by Simon Winchester
3.8 out of 5 stars (4)  £7.17
The River at the Centre of the World: A Journey Up the Yangtze, and Back in Chinese Time

The River at the Centre of the World: A Journey Up the Yangtze, and Back in Chinese Time

by Simon Winchester
3.9 out of 5 stars (10)  £6.99
› Explore similar items

Product details

  • Paperback: 384 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin; New Ed edition (5 Jun 2003)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0141011890
  • ISBN-13: 978-0141011899
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.2 x 3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 77,260 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

  • See Complete Table of Contents

Product Description

Product Description

The reissue of a Simon Winchester classic In 1985 Simon Winchester, struck by a sudden need to discover exactly what was left of the British Empire travelled 100,000 miles back and forth from Antarctica to the Caribbean to visit the far-flung islands that are all that remain of what once made Britain great. His adventures in these distant and forgotten ends of the earth make compelling and often funny reading. With a new introduction and additional material in many of the chapters, this revised edition tells us what has happened while the author's been away.


About the Author

Simon Winchester was born and educated in England, has lived in Africa, Ireland, India and China, and now lives in US. He was a foreign correspondent for 30 years and now contributes to a variety of American and British magazines and newspapers. Hismost recent books have been the two international bestsellers, The Surgeon of Crowthorne and The Map that Changed the World. His new book, Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded is published in June 2002.
Inside This Book (Learn More)
Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Search inside this book:

Suggested Tags from Similar Products

 (What's this?)
Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
 
(2)
(2)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Outposts: Journeys to the Surviving Relics of the British Empire
75% buy the item featured on this page:
Outposts: Journeys to the Surviving Relics of the British Empire 4.7 out of 5 stars (3)
The Map That Changed the World: A Tale of Rocks, Ruin and Redemption
7% buy
The Map That Changed the World: A Tale of Rocks, Ruin and Redemption 4.0 out of 5 stars (28)
£5.99
The Surgeon of Crowthorne: A Tale of Murder,Madness and the Oxford English Dictionary
7% buy
The Surgeon of Crowthorne: A Tale of Murder,Madness and the Oxford English Dictionary 4.1 out of 5 stars (25)
£6.23
The Teatime Islands: Adventures in Britain's Faraway Outposts
7% buy
The Teatime Islands: Adventures in Britain's Faraway Outposts 3.9 out of 5 stars (18)
£6.98
Explore similar items
 

Customer Reviews

3 Reviews
5 star:
 (2)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.7 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Harkening to the last, faint echoes of "Rule Britannia", 13 April 2006
By Joseph Haschka (Glendale, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)   
In 1914, the globe was spanned by the British Empire, on which the sun truly never set. As a boy, I collected stamps, and I was in awe of the number of faraway and exotic places that featured the likeness of the British monarch on their issues. It was, perhaps, these colorful bits of paper, along with the tales of Robin Hood, Richard the Lionheart, and King Arthur that engendered in me a lasting love for and fascination with Great Britain. I've visited the mother island on more than a dozen occasions; I long to be there now. Simon Winchester's OUTPOSTS took me in a different direction - outward to the last vestiges of Empire.

British Indian Ocean Territory, Tristan da Cunha, Gibraltar, Ascension Island, St. Helena, Hong Kong, Bermuda, Turks and Caicos Islands, the British Virgin Islands, Anguilla, Montserrat, the Cayman Islands, the Falkland Islands, and the Pitcairn Islands. These, minus Hong Kong - OUTPOSTS was published in 1985 - are now all that are left of the once proud imperial possessions. Simon visited them over a three year period, except the inaccessible Pitcairn, and tells us about his odyssey in this sterling travel narrative.

Winchester, a Brit himself, is ambiguous about the Empire. On one hand, he apparently feels that the Crown's dominions, protectorates, trustee states, mandated territories and colonies were better left to go their separate ways, if only for the sake of political correctness. On the other hand, he maintains that, of all the European colonial empires, Britain's was the one administered with the greatest degree of good intentions. And, Simon isn't above becoming sentimental, as on Tristan da Cunha, a dependency of St. Helena, during a visit by the Colonial Governor:

"A bugle was blown, a banner was raised, a salute was made, an anthem was played - and the Colonial Governor of St. Helena was formally welcomed on to the tiniest and loneliest dependency in the remanent British Empire. I found I was watching it through a strange golden haze, which cleared if I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand: the children looked so proud, so eager to please, so keen to touch the hand from England, from the wellspring of their official existence."

The volume contains a rudimentary map of each colony visited, but no photographs - a deplorable deficiency in any travel essay, I think. I had to go onto the Web to satisfy my curiosity for visuals; the Tristan de Cunha, St.Helena, and Falkland Islands websites are particularly helpful in this regard.

OUTPOSTS is, of course, dated; Hong Kong has long since reverted to the mandarins in Peking. Luckily, I was able to visit the place in 1994 when it was still a jewel in the British crown. Oddly, the chapter on HK is surprisingly short considering the size and importance of the place at the time the book was written. Winchester didn't even mention one of the best E-rides in the world, the short Star Ferry trip from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island.

One of the best reasons to read OUTPOSTS, if your interested in the subject, is the history of each colony that the author shares. And then there's the occasional trivia. Did you know, for example, that during the Falkland Islands War a team of Argentine frogman arrived in Spain with plans to blow up Royal Navy ships anchored off Gibraltar? They were arrested by the Spanish police on a tip from British Intelligence. And, do you know the location of the only land border between Holland and France? It's not where you might think.

OUTPOSTS grandly took me to places I shall likely never visit, and I'm indebted to Winchester for that.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
38 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Outposts, 10 Sep 2003
By A Customer
After holidaying in Mauritius this year, I came across the story of Diego Garcia and how the islanders were so badly treated by the British Government. Then amazingly I picked up Outposts in the bookshop and discovered that the first place mentioned in Simon Winchester's book was Diego Garcia. I had to buy it to find out more. If you only buy the book to find out more about this travesty of justice, then it is well worth it and I would recommend it on that alone. However the book mentions other far flung parts the remains of the British Empire and it is the smaller, lonelier places that capture the imagination - St. Helena, Tristan da Cunha, and Ascension Island. Thank you to Simon Winchester for a book that satisfied my curiosity about these places and awakened an interest in finding out more about peolpe and places off the beaten track.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Outposts, 16 Oct 2005
By N. Fitzgerald (Boulmer, England) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Having visited some of the far-flung places mentioned in Outposts I was really floored by Winchester's style and prose: he brings these remote islands alive whilst telling a very readable, factual yet humorous tale of the inhabitants of Britain's remaining colonies, their lives and the daily issues they face.

Brilliantly written (his journalistic background readily apparent) and extremely captivating, Outposts is a wonderful insight into these remote patriots on their remote outcrops.

Harry Ritchie writes on a similar line in his book The Last Pink Bits, yet his research is noticeably less than Winchester's, by far. His tone at the start even appears one of mild annoyance at having to travel the world on the subject (surely his own idea?!) to the extent that I actually wondered why he bothered. TV presenter and housewife heart- throb Ben Fogle also attempts a work entitled The Teatime Islands. Although a brave start to his writing career, I believe him better suited to his Prince William impression whilst presenting Animal Thingy on TV, affable though he seems.

Outposts is an extremely well-leafed book in my collection which I keep revisiting. I cannot recommend it highly enough for those interested in travel, empire and history.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 

   

Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Look for similar items by subject









i.e., each product must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...

Feedback

Ad

Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.