Inge Sargent scrive un'autobiografia che celebra la forza dell'amore e l'impegno politico. L'ultima principessa dello Stato shan di Hsipaw accompagna il lettore in Birmania con i suoi occhi di giovane austriaca cresciuta durante il nazismo e profondamente innamorata di un giovane straniero, l'ingegnere minerario Sao Kya Seng. Si erano incontrati negli Stati Uniti, dove entrambi studiavano e dove si sposeranno. È all'approdo del piroscafo a Rangoon con un popolo in festa che Inge scopre che Sao Kya Seng è un principe regnante. Inge è impreparata a tutto ma è curiosa, coraggiosa, forte d'animo. Come Aung San Suu Kyi, è una donna che attraversa più mondi e costruisce un ponte tra la nostra cultura e l'Asia. A Hsipaw, alla prova di un mondo ancora feudale, i due giovani si rivelano per quello che sono: innovatori radicali, sostenuti dalla forza degli ideali e di un grande sentimento. Per attuare la rivoluzione sociale necessaria a passare da feudalesimo a democrazia si dedicheranno totalmente al miglioramento della vita del loro popolo. Finché il sogno di cambiamento non viene interrotto dal colpo di stato militare del 1962 che porterà la Birmania a chiudersi al resto del mondo per cinquant'anni. Quel giorno il principe scompare e insieme tutta la loro vita, il loro progetto sociale.

One of the best-loved paintings in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the enormous canvas depicts the four daughters of an American family named Boit that Sargeant met in Paris in an unusual composition and style that harkens to the masterpiece Las Meninas by Velázquez. Hirschler (senior curator of paintings at the BMFA) has written a fascinating account of the painter and his subjects, describing Sargeant's life and career seamlessly with the story of the Boits and the creation of the painting. The small volume is well illustrated with color plates and many b&w images, including period photographs. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

By the standards of any age, the life of Gertrude Bell (1868-1926) was extraordinary. During her travels in the Middle East, she rode with bandits; was captured by Bedouins; and sojourned in a harem. Her colleagues and friends included Winston Churchill, T. E. Lawrence, and Arabian sheiks. During World War I she worked for British intelligence and later played a crucial role in creating the modern Middle East.
Bell's adventurous career belied her privileged upbringing and sharply contrasted with an era when the parlor and the nursery marked the expected, conventional boundaries of an Englishwoman's life. (Still, it would take Bell a dozen years to be recognized by, and admitted to, the patriarchal Royal Geographical Society.)
Passionate about Arabia, then an inhospitable land of nomadic and warring tribes under Turkish control, she wrote this now classic account of her 1905 trip across the Syrian Desert from Jericho to Antioch. To read it is to be transported.

John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) stands among the greatest of watercolor painters, along with J.M.W. Turner, Winslow Homer, and other masters of this difficult medium. Watercolor was more than a distraction from the portrait and mural commissions Sargent labored over; after 1900, watercolor became central to his artistic vision. His aquarelles are, simply stated, masterworks. Portraits, interiors, landscapes, architectural studies--Sargent's work in watercolor offers a great variety of subject matter, ranging from Arab gypsies to World War I soldiers, to masterful depictions of Venetian churches, to Florida swamp alligators.
Sargent carried his watercolors on his travels; They were ideally suited to capturing the scene, the light, the air, wherever he found himself. This book serves as a record of his travels, featuring the paintings he produced in Palestine, Northern Africa, the Canadian Rockies, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, and Greece. Among specific locales were the islands of Majorca and Corfu; Florence, Venice, Carrara, Lake Garda, and Rome; the Alps; Lake O'Hara; the coast of Maine and the Miami River.
Sargent's bold and often experimental use of the medium, which sometimes led to semi-abstract images, compels admiration among contemporary painters as well as museum goers today. In addition to placing Sargent's accomplishments in the context of his life and time, Carl Little discusses the artist's extraordinary watercolor technique.

Offers reflections on the author's marriage to the prince of Hsipaw and their happy life together