false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1183905748m/59664.jpg 59664 19 <p>From the master of literary reportage whose acclaimed books include <i>Shah of Shahs, The Emperor,</i> and <i>The Shadow of the Sun</i>, an intimate account of his first youthful forays beyond the Iron Curtain. Just out of university in 1955, Kapuściński told his editor that he'd like to go abroad. Dreaming no farther than Czechoslovakia, the young reporter found himself sent to India. Wide-eyed and captivated, he would discover in those days his life's work -- to understand and describe the world in its remotest reaches, in all its multiplicity. From the rituals of sunrise at Persepolis to the incongruity of Louis Armstrong performing before a stone-faced crowd in Khartoum, Kapuściński gives us the non-Western world as he first saw it, through still-virginal Western eyes. The companion on his travels: a volume of Herodotus, a gift from his first boss. Whether in China, Poland, Iran, or the Congo, it was the "father of history" -- and, as Kapuściński would realize, of globalism -- who helped the young correspondent to make sense of events, to find the story where it did not obviously exist. It is this great forerunner's spirit -- both supremely worldly and innately Occidental -- that would continue to whet Kapuściński's ravenous appetite for discovering the broader world and that has made him our own indispensable companion on any leg of that perpetual journey. 1498146 5 6 2007 Travels with Herodotus total:406|5:129|4:155|3:93|2:26|1:3| 406 1599 775 107 4 2 false false Wed Jan 21 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Oct 27 23:11:00 -0700 2008 Thu Jan 22 16:43:10 -0800 2009 (The review in the Economist which recommended this book is available only to subscribers, but is here if you happen to be a subscriber. The Economist's obituary of Kapuściński is also available, here.)

I've recently been categorizing my reading material into "fast" and "...more...]]> 4 2 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Oct 13 17:58:55 -0700 2007 Tue Oct 23 17:02:49 -0700 2007 The Shadow of the Sun and The Emperor catalogues human frailty better than anything since Dante, and like Dante, possesses a moral sense combined with cosmopolitan empathy f...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Oct 29 11:40:51 -0700 2009 Sun Nov 01 20:43:26 -0800 2009 Travels with a Tangerine A Journey in the Footnotes of Ibn Battutah, where a current-day traveler tries to retrace the route of an ancient traveler and reports on what has changed.

But this is different. Kapuscinski looks to Herodotus as...more...]]> 5 0 false false Wed Jan 14 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 06 10:57:18 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 14 12:06:07 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false false Fri Jun 20 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Sep 16 19:32:06 -0700 2008 Tue Sep 16 19:34:58 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 1 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 12 18:15:32 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 27 17:38:11 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Sun Feb 25 09:44:58 -0800 2007 Mon Feb 26 11:08:46 -0800 2007 De muy fácil y amena lectura. ¿Lo mejor? Qu...more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Sep 11 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 15 07:06:42 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 13 00:18:17 -0700 2009 The History by Herodotus, because RK spends a lot of time being enthusiastic about this book. Sometimes, this goes a little overboard, like when RK speculates on what Herodotus would have thought about bicycles.

In my sight, thi...more...]]> 2 0 false false Tue Mar 03 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 27 19:19:40 -0800 2009 Fri Mar 06 12:56:20 -0800 2009
Unfortunately it was a bit of a letdown. I wasn't able to discern the relationship between the random Herodotus ...more...]]> 1 0 true false Sat Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Nov 19 08:25:12 -0800 2008 Wed Dec 03 04:49:17 -0800 2008 1
I wish I had read one of Kapuscinski's prior works - Shah of Shahs or Imperium - before embarking on his trip down memory lane, recounting his experiences as a young foreign journalist in India, China, and Africa. Kapuscinski's revel...more...]]> 2 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 11 12:34:49 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 11 12:37:47 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Jun 26 13:53:48 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 20 09:32:02 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Nov 16 00:28:12 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 16 00:46:55 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Jan 08 23:07:24 -0800 2009 Fri Sep 26 18:56:05 -0700 2008 Thu Jan 08 23:07:24 -0800 2009 1 CROSSING THE BORDER


"We are, all of us, pilgrims who struggle along different paths toward the same destination."
- Antoine De Saint-Exupery


Ryszard Kapuscinski was Polish. He was born in Pinsk which is now Belarus ; but became one of the most famou...more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Sep 27 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Sep 11 11:43:10 -0700 2008 Sun Sep 28 07:47:06 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Nov 05 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Aug 12 20:42:36 -0700 2008 Wed Nov 05 18:43:50 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Aug 04 03:25:17 -0700 2008 Mon Aug 04 03:25:17 -0700 2008 La condició d'estrangera va acompanyada d'una intensa sensació d'aprenentatge constant. Forçada a parlar una llengua estrangera, a establir noves dinàmiques de relacion...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 09 07:24:48 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 03 08:52:21 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Tue Feb 12 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat May 31 18:22:27 -0700 2008 Sat May 31 18:23:04 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue May 06 10:10:34 -0700 2008 Mon May 12 11:51:57 -0700 2008 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=59664