Josh's review
Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuściński
Certainly not his best -- mainly a hodgepodge of recollections he didn't put into other books, loosely structured around an exegesis of The History by Herodotus, whom Kapuscinski calls the first journalist.
To me, the most interesting part was how he applied his eye for telling detail to events in Herodotus that happened 2,500 years ago. Things like this:
Amestris had sent for Xerxes' personal guards and with their help had mutilated Masistes' wife. She cut off her breasts and threw them to the dogs, cut off her nose, ears, lips and tongue, and then sent her back home, totally disfigured.
Did Amestris, having gotten her sister-in-law in her clutches, speak to her? Did she hurl insults at her while slowly, piece by piece (because the sharpness of steel was still unknown), hacking off her breasts? Did she shake a fist at her, the same fist in which she gripped the bloody knife? Or did she just pant and hiss with hatred? How did the guards behave, obliged to firmly hold d...more
To me, the most interesting part was how he applied his eye for telling detail to events in Herodotus that happened 2,500 years ago. Things like this:
Amestris had sent for Xerxes' personal guards and with their help had mutilated Masistes' wife. She cut off her breasts and threw them to the dogs, cut off her nose, ears, lips and tongue, and then sent her back home, totally disfigured.
Did Amestris, having gotten her sister-in-law in her clutches, speak to her? Did she hurl insults at her while slowly, piece by piece (because the sharpness of steel was still unknown), hacking off her breasts? Did she shake a fist at her, the same fist in which she gripped the bloody knife? Or did she just pant and hiss with hatred? How did the guards behave, obliged to firmly hold d...more
