In 1933, the delightfully eccentric travel writer Robert Byron set out on a journey through the Middle East via Beirut, Jerusalem, Baghdad and Teheran to Oxiana, near the border between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. Throughout, he kept a thoroughly captivating record of his encounters, discoveries, and frequent misadventures. His story would become a best-selling travel book throughout the English-speaking world, until the acclaim died down and it was gradually forgotten. When Paul Fussell published his own book Abroad, in 1982, he wrote that The Road to Oxiana is to the...

First published in 1931, Robert Byron's Essay on India evaluates the state of colonial rule in India and analyses the contemporary problems facing the country. Based upon Byron's travelling experiences within India in 1929 as a correspondent for the Daily Express, the work explores political factors more fully than in Byron's earlier writings, evaluating the successes and failures of British colonialism in the region.

First published in 1929, this highly influential study offers a historical perspective on the Byzantine Empire, from the establishment of Constantinople by Emperor Constantine around 330 AD, through to the fall of Constantinople at the hands of the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. Byron's work considers the empire in its entirety, assessing the highs and lows across a thousand year period. He provides insights into trade, culture, the organs of state, religion, the imperial rulers, and the battle with the Ottoman Empire, which would ultimately end in the fall of the Byzantine Empire and the end of...