Full Moon Over Noah's Ark

"Acclaimed travel writer Rick Antonson sets his adventurous compass on Mount Ararat, exploring the region's long history, religious mysteries, and complex politics. Mount Ararat is the most fabled mountain in the world. For millennia this massif in eastern Turkey has been rumored as the resting place of Noah's Ark following the Great Flood. But it also plays a significant role in the longstanding conflict between Turkey and Armenia. Author Rick Antonson joined a five-member expedition to the mountain's nearly 17,000-foot summit, trekking alongside a contingent of Armenians, for whom Mount Ararat is the stolen symbol of their country. Antonson weaves vivid historical anecdote with unexpected travel vignettes, whether tracing earlier mountaineering attempts on the peak, recounting the genocide of Armenians and its unresolved debate, or depicting the Kurds' ambitions for their own nation's borders, which some say should include Mount Ararat. What unfolds in Full Moon Over Noah's Ark is one man's odyssey, a tale told through many stories. Starting with the flooding of the Black Sea in 5500 BCE, through to the Epic of Gilgamesh and the contrasting narratives of the Great Flood known to followers of the Judaic, Christian and Islamic religions, Full Moon Over Noah's Ark takes readers along with Antonson through the shadows and broad landscapes of Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Armenia, shedding light on a troubled but fascinating area of the world"--

Rick Antonson is the author of Route 66 Still Kicks: Driving America's Main Street, To Timbuktu for a Haircut: A Journey Through West Africa, Full Moon Over Noah's Ark: An Odyssey to Mount Ararat, and Walking With Ghosts in Papua New Guinea: Crossing the Kokoda Trail in the Last Wild Place on Earth. Rick is a past chair of Destination International, based in Washington, D.C. and past deputy chair of the Pacific Asia Travel Association based in Bangkok, and the former president and CEO of Tourism Vancouver. He and his wife Janice live in Predator Ridge in Canada’s Okanagan Valley.