Colin Duncan Taylor – författare

A fascinating account of the Pyrenees and their people—from prehistoric settlement to the present dayThe Pyrenees dominate the landscape between France and Spain, stretching from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. Long thought of as an impassable, unspoiled wilderness, the mountains are often seen as both a physical and cultural barrier between western Europe and the Iberian Peninsula. Yet this treacherous terrain has been inhabited and shaped by human hands for centuries.Colin Duncan Taylor leads us through the human history of the Pyrenees, from the cave art of their first prehistoric inhabitants to today’s spa towns and ski resorts. Early pastoralists, Greek and Roman colonists, the Visigoths, and the Moors all left their mark on the mountains, which have played an outsize role in European history—as a place to live or hide, attack or defend, exploit or enjoy.Taylor collects stories from both sides of the mountains and reveals how they have been made and remade throughout history by people from all levels of society.

A journey through the past and present of a little-known area of south-west France. Explores the people, places and events that shaped a land once too important to ignore. A whole library has been written about the Lauragais in French, but virtually nothing in English.The Lauragais lies in south-west France at the heart of Occitania. Today it is largely ignored by the millions who visit its neighbours each year – Toulouse and Carcassonne – but in times gone by it rarely escaped the attentions of the great and the good, or the ambitious and the avaricious. This is a book with big characters – Simon de Montfort, the Black Prince, Thomas Jefferson and the Duke of Wellington among others – but most of all it tells the story of the people who have shaped this land, the living and the dead, families that have lived in the same house or village for hundreds of years. This is the story of their lives, their religion, their forgotten language and their environment. On the autoroute, a journey through the Lauragais will take you three-quarters of an hour, but all you will see are tantalising glimpses of gorgeous countryside and distant signs of human habitation. In this book, the author takes you on a more leisurely trip through time in a land that is endearingly modest about its illustrious past.