By The Ionian Sea

By the Ionian Sea: Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy is a travelogue by George Gissing. Gissing was a late 19th century novelist, here writing about his culture trip to Calabria in Italy. Excerpt: "Last night the wind changed and the sky began to clear; this morning I awoke in sunshine, and with a feeling of eagerness for my journey. I shall look upon the Ionian Sea, not merely from a train or a steamboat as before, but at long leisure: I shall see the shores where once were Tarentum and Sybaris, Croton and Locri. Every man has his intellectual desire; mine is to escape life as I know it and dream myself into that old world which was the imaginative delight of my boyhood."

Presents a thematic collection of papers dealing with the Stone Age and Bronze Age archaeology of the Ionian Sea, situated off the south western Balkan peninsula. It is based on an international conference held in Athens, Greece in January 2020. The eastern Ionian occupies a geographically complex area, which since the Pleistocene has undergone significant alterations due to tectonic activity and sea-level fluctuations. This dynamic environment, where islands, mainland, and sea intertwined to present different landscapes and seascapes to the human communities exploring the region at different times in the past, provides an ideal setting for their study from a diachronic perspective. This book deals thematically with the processes of circulation of people, materials, artefacts and ideas by examining patterns of settlement, burial and multi-layered interconnections between the different communities via land and sea. It investigates aspects of regional and interregional communication, isolation, collective memory and the creation of distinct identities within and between different cultural and social groups. It focuses on the islands of the Central Ionian Sea, offering new data from excavations and surveys on Zakynthos, Kefalonia, Ithaki and the smaller islands of the Inner Ionian Archipelago between Lefkada and Akarnania. The cultural interchange between the islands and the continental coasts is reflected in the volume with the addition of chapters dealing with contemporary sites in west Greece and southeast Italy. The Ionian, often regarded as 'at the fringes' of the Aegean, the Balkan and the central Mediterranean archaeological discourse, has lately offered new and exciting data that not only enrich but also alter our perceptions of mobility, settlement and interaction. The collection of papers in this book enhances theoretical discussions by offering a geographically and culturally comparative approach, ranging from the earliest Palaeolithic evidence of human presence in the region to the end of the Bronze Age.

The book "" By the Ionian Sea: Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy "" has been considered important throughout the human history, and so that this work is never forgotten we have made efforts in its preservation by republishing this book in a modern format for present and future generations. This whole book has been reformatted, retyped and designed. These books are not made of scanned copies and hence the text is clear and readable.

"I eventually came across an edition of Gissing's work.... At one moment, halfway through my reading of this classic, I turned to my wife and said that I wanted to visit Italy and follow in the footsteps Gissing made in 1897 during his third and final trip to Italy:from Naples where he boarded the coastal steamer south to Paola; and from there, in a horse-drawn carriage, through the Calabrian mountains to Cosenza.From Cosenza, he went by train to Taranto and, using a combination of trains and carriages, made it all the way to Reggio di Calabria.It was a journey that covered much of the foot of Italy, principally along the coastal instep of the Ionian Sea....I wanted to see, one hundred years after Gissing, how these ancient lands looked." - from A Sweet and Glorious LandIn the winter of 1897-1898, Victorian writer George Gissing made a well-chronicled journey throughout southern Italy.The result was a book, By the Ionian Sea, in which he detailed the influence of ancient Greece on the peninsula and contrasted the glory of Greece and its magnificent cities to the southern Italy of the late 1800s.The book was published in 1901 and has since become a classic in travel literature.A hundred years later, award-winning newspaper journalist John Keahey sets off to retrace Gissing's footsteps.His goal is to compare and contrast the two Italys, seeing first-hand all the changes that have occurred over the past century.He explores the outdoor markets in Naples, journeys to the charming coastal town of Paola, takes a train ride out of the Calabrian mountain town of Cosenza and into the port city of Taranto, and makes his way down to Reggio at the toe of Italy's boot.Along the route, he visits modern-day Crotone, the Ionian coastal city that was famous in antiquity as the place where Pythagoras had his school, as well as where Hannibal, pursued for 15 years along the length of Italy by the Romans, embarked in shame for Carthage (now in modern-day Tunisia).Going beyond Gissing's journey, Keahey also makes an additional stop at Sibari near where the site of ancient Sybaris has been partially excavated.From train rides through the lush countryside to the crisp mountain air of Catanzaro, Keahey paints a beautiful and compelling picture of one of the lesser known parts of the country.Reminiscent of Under the Tuscan Sun,A Sweet and Glorious Land is not only a wonderful travelogue but also an intriguing story of southern Italy and its people.Praise for A Sweet and Glorious Land:"John Keahey's idea of visiting the shores of the Ionian Sea under the expert guidance of his predecessor, the Victorian novelist and traveller George Gissing, has proved a brilliant one, fertilizing his own originality and giving breadth to his lightly-worn learning." (Pierre Coustillas, editor of The Gissing Journal and Professor of EnglishLiterature at the University of Lille, France)AUTHORBIO: JOHN KEAHEY is a veteran newspaper journalist who, for the past ten years, has been a news editor and reporter for The Salt Lake Tribune.He has history and marketing degrees from the University of Utah and spends as much time as possible in Italy.He lives in Salt Lake City with book-designer Connie Disney.

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The Ionian Islands stretch south from the Adriatic, where Corfu’s Pantokrator mountain overlooks Albania across narrow straits, along the western coast of mainland Greece through Paxi, Kephalonia, Ithaca, Lefkada and Zakynthos, to Kythira, midway between Athens and Crete. Three crucial sea-battles were fought here – Sybota (the first recorded), Actium and Lepanto – an indication of the Ionians’ role as an East-West crossroads, between Western Christendom and the Orthodox and Islamic East. Ruled by Venice in her Stato da Mar (sea-empire), the islands became an independent state, as the Septinsular Republic and then, under British Protection, as the United States of the Ionian Islands. Before the mainland Greeks had a State, the Ionian people were proud of having a university – from 1824 – in Corfu town, a World Heritage Site. The islands were united with the Kingdom of Greece in 1864 – the first addition to its territory. This book (with over thirty illustrations) explores the history, archaeology, languages, customs and culture of the Ionian Islands. Without venturing far from the islands, readers will learn much about this distinctive part of the Mediterranean and Greek world. The chapters range from the mythology of the Bronze Age (Homer’s Scheria, where Odysseus startled Nausicaa as she bathed) to today, concentrating particularly on the British Protectorate (1815–1864). One, illustrated by contemporary maps, deals with descriptions of the islands by a fourteenth-century Venetian writing in Latin. The roles of Jews, Souliot refugees, Greek revolutionaries, rebel peasants in Cephalonia, and workers in Corfu’s port suburb of Mandouki are examined in detail. There are contributions on religion and philosophy, as well as literature, music, painting, and the folk-art of carved walking-canes.

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