Here is the second of the "lost" diaries of young Arthur Conan Doyle, written in 1881 while he was a twenty-two-year-old student at the University of Edinburgh Medical School. In this rollicking story of high adventure, Arthur Conan Doyle serves as a British spy along with the legendary Doctor Joseph Bell - who became the real-life inspiration for the world's most famous literary detective, Sherlock Holmes. This diary details how Doyle and Dr. Bell journey to Russia on a secret forensic mission to save Europe from war. Peopled with Doyle's real-life contemporaries - including Dostoyesky and Rasputin, it is an exciting mix of murder, mystery, literary history, and humour sure to please Sherlock Holmes fans everywhere!

London: June 1897. It's the day before Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee and her son, the playboy Prince of Wales, arrives at 221B Baker Street pursued by anarchist assassins. The greatest chef in the world, Auguste Escoffier, also arrives, his career about to be shattered by blackmail and scandal. Can Holmes, Watson, and Irene Adler save the life of the heir to the British crown and the reputation of the master chef? This action-filled tale of royal debauchery, priceless gems, and gourmet food will provide Dr. Watson with the material for Sherlock Holmes' most bizarre and tastiest case.

In this sweeping history, Steven Marks tells the fascinating story of how Russian figures, ideas, and movements changed our world in dramatic but often unattributed ways. On Europe's periphery, Russia was an early modernizing nation whose troubles stimulated intellectuals to develop radical and utopian alternatives to Western models of modernity. These provocative ideas gave rise to cultural and political innovations that were exported and adopted worldwide. Wherever there was discontent with modern existence or traditional societies were undergoing transformation, anti-Western sentiments arose. Many people perceived the Russian soul as the antithesis of the capitalist, imperialist West and turned to Russian ideas for inspiration and even salvation. Steven Marks shows that in this turbulent atmosphere of the past century and a half, Russia's lines of influence were many and reached far. Russia gave the world new ways of writing novels. It launched cutting-edge trends in ballet, theater, and art that revolutionized contemporary cultural life. The Russian anarchist movement benignly shaped the rise of vegetarianism and environmentalism while also giving birth to the violent methods of modern terrorist organizations. Tolstoy's visions of nonviolent resistance inspired Gandhi and the U.S. Civil Rights movement at the same time that Russian anti-Semitic conspiracy theories intoxicated right-wing extremists the world over. And dictators from Mussolini and Hitler to Mao and Saddam Hussein learned from the experiments of the Soviet regime. Moving gracefully from Moscow and St. Petersburg to Beijing and Berlin, London and Luanda, Mexico and Mississippi, Marks takes us on an intellectual tour of the Russian exports that shaped the twentieth century. The result is a richly textured and stunningly original account of the extent to which Russia--as an idea and a producer of ideas--has contributed to the making of the modern world. Placing Russia in its global context, the book betters our understanding of the anti-Western strivings that have been such a prominent feature of recent history.

At the age of eighty, my door to a career in medical and scientific writing was slammed shut by ageism. To keep my brain occupied, I turned to writing fiction. I didnt take creative writing courses in my youth, so I hope my shortcomings are compensated for by lessons learned in life. After my wife died of cancer, I raised my sons as a single parent. Ive met politicians, madams, prostitutes, pedophiles, FBI agents, and Russian intelligence agents. Im even acquainted with a former major general in the KGB. Ive traveled to Europe sixteen times, including three visits to Vladimir Putins hometown of Saint Petersburg. I can still speak some French and German. Ive also been to South America and North Africa. I used to be a moderately strong chess player (even Bobby Fischer tolerated my presence, which was uncommon for someone so hostile). Im fairly knowledgeable about dolphins and venomous snakes. My masters paper at Columbia University dealt with nuclear weapons testing. Since my Russian is limited to the alphabet, Im obliged to read my favorite author, Dostoevsky, in English translation. I envy the craftsmanship of James Joyce. His Dubliners should be read and reread by all aspiring fiction writers. Alas, Ill never get to his level.

The rise of the automobile as told through its Rubicon moment—a sensational, high-risk race across two continents on the verge of revolution. The racers—an Italian prince and his chauffeur, a French racing driver, a con man, and several rival journalists—battle over steep inclines, through narrow mountain passages, and across the arid Gobi Desert. Competitors endure torrential rain and choking dust. There are barely any roads, and petrol is almost impossible to find. A global audience of millions follows each twist and turn, devouring reports telegraphed from the course. More than its many adventures, the Peking-to-Paris Motor Challenge took place on the precipice of a new world. As the twentieth century dawned, imperial regimes in China and Russia were crumbling, paving the way for the rise of communist ones. The electric telegraph was rapidly transforming modern communication, and with it, the news media, commerce, and politics. Suspended between the old and the new, the Peking-to-Paris, as best-selling historian Kassia St. Clair writes, became a critical tipping point. A gripping, immersive narrative of the race, The Race to the Future sets the drivers’ derring-do (and occasional cheating) against the backdrop of a larger geopolitical and technological race to the future. Interweaving events from the fall of the Qing dynasty to the departure of the horse economy and the rise of gendered marketing, St. Clair shows how the Peking-to-Paris provided an impetus for profound social, cultural, and industrial change, while masterfully capturing the mounting tensions between nations and empires—all building up to the cataclysmic event that changed everything: the First World War. “Consistently mind-boggling, often funny, and occasionally hair-raising” (Philip Ball), The Race to the Future is the incredible true story of the quest against the odds that propelled us along the road to modernity.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1958.