ARMENIA(I)

H.F.B. Lynch’s classic two-volume work on Armenia is considered to be the best travel book written in the English language covering Armenia. The author, in an account of the two separate journeys he undertook in Armenia between 1893 and 1898, presents a panoramic view of the whole area, with its monasteries and churches, towns and villages, mountains adn rivers. He combines an excellence in style with scholarship and the result is a happy mixture of well-written and at times poetic exposition with a good deal of scholarship in his treatment of the inscription and the political surveys. This well-illustrated work, with 197 photographs and sketches by the author himself;, as well as numerous maps and plans, is the most extensive of its kind covering both Russian and Turkish Armenia. After so many years, it continues to be of interest to students of Armenia and of the area in general, as a valuable source of information. Furthermore, it is a touching tribute to the native inhabitants, the Armenians, who lived and built for centuries on these historic lands, but who, due to tragic circumstanes, were eradicated from the larger part of the area.