Travels with Herodotus (Vintage International)

Location: Home » vampire: masquerade » Formats » Travels with Herodotus (Vintage International)

Similar Items:

•	Shadow of the Silk Road (P.S.)
•	Imperium
•	The Shadow of the Sun
•	Shah of Shahs
•	The Soccer War

Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
From the renowned journalist comes this intimate account of his years in the field, traveling for the first time beyond the Iron Curtain to India, China, Ethiopia, and other exotic locales.

In the 1950s, Ryszard Kapuscinski finished university in Poland and became a foreign correspondent, hoping to go abroad – perhaps to Czechoslovakia. Instead, he was sent to India – the first stop on a decades-long tour of the world that took Kapuscinski from Iran to El Salvador, from Angola to Armenia. Revisiting his memories of traveling the globe with a copy of Herodotus' Histories in tow, Kapuscinski describes his awakening to the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of new environments, and how the words of the Greek historiographer helped shape his own view of an increasingly globalized world. Written with supreme eloquence and a constant eye to the global undercurrents that have shaped the last half-century, Travels with Herodotus is an exceptional chronicle of one man's journey across continents.

Customer Reviews: Read 14 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

Dispatches From Dangerous Places July 4, 2007
75 out of 78 found this review helpful

As a young reporter in Poland in the 1950's, Ryszard Kapuscinski wondered what it would be like to cross the border. For someone living in a totalitarian society this would be a privelege. His goals were modest: he simply wanted to cross the border and come right back. He asked his editor at the Polish News Agency for permission to go to Czechoslavakia, instead they sent him to India with a clothbound copy of " The Histories" by Herodotus. The book fired his imagination and became a standard for his own travels. Although Herodotus live 2,500 years earlier, they shared many passions, the central one being an insatiable curiousity about foreign lands and peoples. During the course of his life and travels, Kapuscinski would experience 27 coups and revolutions, and be sentenced to death 4 times.

Kapuscinski has written some remarkable books, most of which have been translated into English. He reported from Tehran after the fall of the Shah, he chronicled the life of Haile Selassie, and he was in Angola when Portuguese colonists pulled up stakes and left the country, beautifully described in "Another Day of Life."

"Travels with Herodotus" is more personal and introspective than his earlier works. Some critics have questioned his purported use of Herodotus as a lifelong guide when he was never mentioned before in his 30 year career as a journalist. Jack Shafer of "Slate" has written an essay entitled "The Lies of Ryszard Kapuscinski," arguing that a sharp line must be drawn between journalism and fiction. In Kapuscinski's reporting the line is never clearcut. Many of his admirers claim that he has earned his poetic license and is therefore entitled to embellish a little. It is as if Kapucinski anticipated this criticism in advance by choosing Herodotus as his role model in his final book. Herodotus famously tended to fabricate when facts were not available.

Since Kapuscinski's death other damaging information has come to light. It has been revealed from Polish state archives that he was a communist collaborator. How else could he have been allowed to travel abroad all those years? And how else could he have known so well the nature of totalitarian regimes and how they coopted their citizens?

The truth here is never straight forward, it is not journalism as Jack Shafer would define it. Nevertheless, the work under review is a beautifully written memoir from which it is easy to see why Kapuscinski was one of the world's most highly regarded literary journalists. The truth that shines through is reminiscent of the magical realism of Latin American writers, but it would not pass muster in a journalism class.

I would recommend this book so one can decide for oneself whether Kapuscinski is more like Herodotus the "father of history" or Herodotus the "father of lies."

5 out of 5 stars

Searching the World June 22, 2007
21 out of 24 found this review helpful

A book for all aspiring foreign correspondents. The author interweaves tales from his early career as a journalist, assigned by his Polish employer to cover various third-world countries, with the ancient historian Herodotus' similar restless quest for information on the other.

A very polished literary effort by a wise person, now sadly dead.

5 out of 5 stars

A Beautiful, Moving Final Book from Kapuscinski June 28, 2007
19 out of 21 found this review helpful

Kapuscinski's final book is equal parts travel diary and meditation on Herodotus' Histories, apt because the Herodotus RK celebrates shares much the same virtues as RK: an unmistakable humanity and literacy that shines through in their reportage. Having received a copy of Herodotus' great work from an editor as a suggested travel companion early in his career, RK came back to the work again and again during his own travels, and this book is the story of how his love for Herodotus illumined his own travels.

A very fitting final word from, without a doubt, the finest journalist of the 20th century, and a very beautiful book, befitting the best of RK.

5 out of 5 stars

A poet and a true journalist July 31, 2007
12 out of 12 found this review helpful

I've read most of Kapuscinski's books and I have to say that this is among the best, simply because this text gives readers even more insights into the man. Kapuscinski had an erudition you rarely find in reportage and what's more, he had what so many journalists these days lack: limitless curiosity.

In our age of 24/7/365 media coverage of everything under the sun, most journalists are simply out there looking to create stories where there really aren't any or follow what other agencies are reporting on. Kapuscinski, on the other hand, follows his own instincts and digs beyond surface appearances around him -- whether at home, in Africa or in the Far East -- to give his readers details that are at the heart of cultures other than his own.

Kapuscinski, perhaps because of his youth spent in post-War eastern Europe, had a great eye for irony and the tendency for history to repeat itself, often with devastating effects. But in spite of his witnessing of the absurb, the violent and the wasteful, Kapuscinski never stops digging for truth, never stops pushing himself beyond the familiar, just as his forebearer Herodotus did centuries before.

4 out of 5 stars

Delightful musings. August 7, 2007
6 out of 6 found this review helpful

As a devoted fan of Kapuscinski, I especially enjoyed these musings, which traveled (as he did) in many directions, both in the geographically-defined world, and the intellectual one. I have always looked forward to Kapuscinski's next book, regardless of what his subject might be; I truly miss him already.

Powered by Associate-O-Matic

T-shirts, Posters

Pentagram T-shirts, bags, etc...

Gothic Posters