Helpful Score: 1
Ever wonder what the world looks like in remote China or Iran? This book follows a man who traveled the thousands year old Silk Road (the trail that was used to trade eastern ideas and goods with western ideas and goods)
A good book to give you a very different perspective on what you have as an American and how other people are living.
A good book to give you a very different perspective on what you have as an American and how other people are living.
Helpful Score: 1
The first couple of chapters of this book were kind of tedious but I'm very glad I stuck with it - the chapters covering Central Asia are particularly riveting. Even though the beginning 'vignettes' weren't that interesting to me, the writing is superb.
Interesting writing, he has a yearning for desiccated, ut-of-the-way,has-been places (I guess Central Asia has lots of them). He did this trip when he was in his 60s, all the more impressive. I think he kind of petered out at the end, though (or maybe I did).
Very disappointing. I read this thinking it would give me insights about the history and culture of the Silk Road, which is surely one of the glorious and fascinating chapters of history. However, in the first third, he presented very little background to the bleak present-day landscapes and the mostly dispirited and hopeless people he described. Extremely depressing and not recommended. I did like the author's book on Siberia, though.
