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Travels with Herodotus (Vintage International) | 
 enlarge | Author: Ryszard Kapuscinski
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 7440
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.7
ISBN: 1400078784
Dewey Decimal Number: 938
EAN: 9781400078783
ASIN: 1400078784
Publication Date: June 10, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new item. Over 3.5 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Order with confidence. Code: B20080828211842T
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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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 9 more reviews...
 socio-political reporter July 23, 2008
Kapuscinski reports on the people and political culture of the third and fourth worlds( the third being countries like Iran and the fourth countries like the Congo).
He is very humble to recognize that it is difficult if not impossible to report on a country if a reporter does not speak the foreign country language such as India and Iran.
He laments the total chaos of countries in Africa, the total anarchy !
He also made us realize through Herodotus Histories that a good reporter is more than the reporter who provides snippets of sound and images clips for immediate daily consumptions.
He forces us to realize that men in their psychological makeups are still the same as in Herodotus times.
Through the Histories of Herodotus underatand today's events.
 Meander through history June 18, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book steals the reader away from the present in a journey through time. Although his own stories and narratives are fascinating, Kapuscinski's enlivening of Herodotus becomes what holds you. You can't help but feel excitement for the reading journey ahead when you pick the book up after having put it down for a break. Furthermore, his analysis of a certain type of "traveler" (versus tourist) will haunt (or inspire) any of those who find themselves more the former than the latter. In the realm of memoirs, this book is of par excellence.
 Worthwhile for the first half. March 29, 2008
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
A poetic view into the experiences of a Polish man raised with Stalinist-era values, and how he deals with these values' total deficiency in helping him understand and cope with the rest of the world. A little-kid-in-big-city book. I can't dissociate myself from my classicist leanings enough to know what to do with his expansive interpretations of Herodotus, though. Try to enjoy them as fiction, as musings? Tough to do!
Sadly, the book seems to me to lose steam halfway through: it becomes a regurgitation of Herodotus's stories about war (the LEAST interesting bits of Hdt., I think), literally paraphrasing Hdt. for chapters on end. I'm not enough of a literary gal to sustain the attention necessary to make these expansive retellings interesting as new literature. If I wanted to read Hdt., I would. And it would be far more interesting, because I'd get the neat ethnographic and mythological excurses mixed in with the boring accounts of battle formations.
completely wonderful February 13, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The last book by this great journalist. It makes perfect sense that he traveled with Herodotus, and that this ancient Greek writer, the first historian, or the first reporter, was like a companion to him. History is stories. Kapuscinsky was most wise in always remembering this and he learned it from Herodotus. His writing is transparent. He writes so you can know. He never forgets that nothing is definitive. He has some very wise things to say about Africa. I like that he sees Africa as part of the world and not as a special case. Herodotus did too. Herodotus wrote before the psychopathology of racism became a kind of law. Kapuscinsky writes in the aftermath, as the damage trickles down. He narrates in vivid snapshots. In this book he tells you where he came from. He describes Poland after WWII. He describes life under Stalin. He shares his first travel experiences. India! Completely unprepared! Culture shock! In this book you get to understand where his abiding clarity came from. I just loved it.
Always Interesting January 6, 2008
Ryszard Kapuscinki's final book is a wonderful synthesis of historical musing and inquiry with his own observations during his travels as a journalist. He draws on Herodotus' Histories, quoting from them extensively while drawing the reader into his own fascination with the ancient writer's motivations and sense of wonder at the episodes he recorded. This aspect of the book weaves seamlessly with the author's equally entertaining descriptions of the people and places he is personally experiencing while traveling to some of the 20th century's dark corners of the world.
A perfect blend of historical essay and journalistic reportage that is never boring.
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