These books about the fascinatingly diverse world of the Aegean Islands are written with a rare combination of scholarship and passion. They are the fruit of three decades of occasional exploration followed by seven years of dedicated study of the islands. And they document, in a detail not attempted before, the wide range of art, architecture, archaeology, history, natural phenomena, fauna and flora of this island world. At over 3,400 pages they carry more than twice the amount of information that is available from any other source. That space also gives them the possibility to cover a wide variety of subjects, and to look at those topics with unhurried precision. The exquisite wall paintings of Bronze Age Santorini; the mountain flowers of Samos; the secret rites of the sanctuary of Samothrace; the sponge divers of Symi; the earliest beginnings of European sculpture in the delicate Cycladic figurines; the fantasy architecture of the 1920s & 30s on Rhodes and Leros...whatever the subject, they not only describe but explain the evolution and story behind what the visitor sees and wants to know. They are the ultimate resource for the interested and curious traveller.