Can a city’s history be found in its museums? Perhaps, but Barbara Hodgson believes that it is in the streets, bookstores, and markets where the city tantalizingly and coyly unveils its real past and most intimate self.

From Brussels to Marrakech and Damascus to Portland, Trading in Memories follows Hodgson’s travels through markets and other repositories of material culture around the world. The book presents a wonderful visual and textual record of the life and character of a place as found in the clutter of crowded stalls and dusty collections, in gothic graveyards, and on crumbling walls. The stories behind the objects—and those selling them— can reveal much about a place and its past, attesting to the constant flux and flow of humanity.

Travel through these exotic and mysterious places yourself; see more of Trading in Memories here.