num_pages: 384
description: The Rise &amp; Fall of Great Powers begins in a dusty bookshop. What follows is an abduction heated political debate glimpses into strangers homes and travel around the globe. Its a novel of curious personalities mystery and lots of books: volumes that the characters collect covet steal.Tooly Zylberberg owner of a bookshop in the Welsh countryside spends most of her life reading. Yet theres one tale that never made sense: her own life. In childhood she was spirited away from home then raised around Asia Europe and the United States. But who were the people who brought her up? And what ever happened to them?There was Humphrey a curmudgeon from Russia; there was the charming but tempestuous Sarah who hailed from Kenya; and there was Venn the charismatic leader who transformed Tooly forever. Until quite suddenly he vanished.Years later she has lost hope of ever knowing what took place. Then the old mysteries stir again sending her  and the reader  on a hunt through place and time from Wales to Bangkok to New York to Italy from the 1980s to the Year 2000 to the present from the end of the Cold War to the rise and wobbles of U.S. power to the digital revolution of today.Gradually all secrets are revealed
language: English
title: The Rise & Fall of Great Powers
publisher: The Dial Press