Travels with Herodotus

Critics

• Lessons of the Histories

  Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuscinski Allen Lane £20, pp275 With Agatha Christie, you know you're off and running when the first stiff turns up in the library, harbinger of a terrible body count. In the case of Ian McEwan, it's a hint of tran ... (read full critics)

  guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

• Two for the road

  Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuscinski, translated by Klara Glowczewska 282pp, Allen Lane, £20 Born in Poland in 1932, Ryszard Kapuscinski was for many decades a foreign correspondent, initially for a newspaper and then for PAP, the Polish new ... (read full critics)

  guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

1 Review

• 

  A bit disappointing

  As a person who loves to travel, and who has lived in places where he didn't understand the culture and/or language, I could completely relate to Mr Kapuscinski's experiences portrayed in the first few chapters of this book. The dismal feeling of an inability to function effectively, the struggle to ... (continue)

  As a person who loves to travel, and who has lived in places where he didn't understand the culture and/or language, I could completely relate to Mr Kapuscinski's experiences portrayed in the first few chapters of this book. The dismal feeling of an inability to function effectively, the struggle to learn how to act local, etc. Beyond the first few chapters, though, my enjoyment of Travels with Herodotus waned rapidly.

  Mr K bounces from country to country, sharing smatterings of anecdotes, some interesting, others not so much. He then bounces to a story from The Histories which doesn't appear to be related to these personal experiences at all. It's altogether possible there is linkage between Mr K's travels in the 1950s and Mr H's writings from ancient Greece on some different level, but I was too groggy to catch them. That's unfortunate, but typical of my experience reading this book.

  Mr K feels Herodotus was more of a journalist than an historian; he retrospectively draws and relays lessons from The Histories relevant to his own career as a journalist - e.g., learn from first-hand experience, or directly from someone who was there. This is all fine and dandy, but doesn't necessarily equate to a riveting read, and didn't require summaries from The Histories to pad an undersized walk down memory lane (although these provided some of the better reading).

  A star for the first part; a star for some fun reading selected portions of The Histories... as an overall work, though, I didn't see the point, and can't recommend it.

  Is this helpful?

  Andyberschauer said on Aug 10, 2010 | Add your feedback

Book Details

• Rating:
  (3)
  • 5 stars
  • 4 stars
  • 3 stars
  • 2 stars
  • 1 star
• English Books
• Paperback 288 Pages
• ISBN-10: 1400078784
• ISBN-13: 9781400078783
• Publisher: Vintage Books USA
• Pub date: Jun 10, 2008

Prices Change currency & sellers