'The true paradises are the paradises we have lost,' wrote Marcel Proust. This beautifully illustrated account of the historical city of Granada strikes at the heart of this message.

Lost Paradiseis the first book for English-speaking readers about the unique and pivotal European city of Granada. This dazzling account brings to the fore the image Granada as a lost paradise, reveals it as a place of perpetual contradiction, of beauty and violence, and links it to the great dilemma over Spain's true identity as a nation.

Romantic and exotic, tragic and nostalgic, the city has resonated with travellers worldwide as a place of peerless beauty which captures the imagination, a place that lives as potently in the mind as in reality. It is the stuff of story and legend, with an unforgettable history to match.

More than any other Spanish city it encapsulates the way in which Spain has been formed and reshaped time and time again, as Romans, Visigoths, Moors, Jews and gypsies and musicians and writers have come and gone. And all the while the mirage of the Alhambra hovers over it all, a supreme expression of civilization. Its beauty is conveyed in Drayson's spellbinding prose, and in a hundred colour images.