I don't share Kapuściński's romantic fascination with the world or its history. I do love when I open a book and there's a map, but I'm not romantic. As such, his writing is a little bit too poetic for me. Also, I was somewhat let down in the beginning when I realized that this was not the author following in the footsteps of Herodotus. Later I was less disappointed, as he did end up traveling to some of the same places, for example North Africa, Iran, and Herodotus's birthplace in Turkey. I felt a bit of wanderlust when he was sailing to Bodrum and exploring the royal ruins in Persepolis.

The most exciting parts of the book for me were where the author highlights passages from Herodotus's The Histories. It is appalling how much torture, revenge, eye gouging, beheading, enslaving, castrating, invading, raping, sacrificing, etc that happened during the early classical antiquity. Some of the stories are just so crazy you have to wonder if they are true. I'm looking forward to reading more about classical Greece and Persia.

Kapuściński, a native of war-torn post-WWII Poland, once had the ambitious goal to just one cross the border. His wish is granted when he is sent, not to Czechoslovakia, but to India, a world vastly different from his own. Thus begins his career as a reporter sent to far-flung locales. Kapuściński can be seen as a modern day Herodotus, an ancient Greek who traveled his known world to report back on what he has learned about it and its past. Kapuściński's travelogue, therefore, not only traverses his times, but those of the past, too. He consistently compares his world to Herodotus's to discover what can be known about leadership, warfare, culture, inquiry, and learning.

Because little is known about Herodotus, Kapuściński draws a lot on what he says, and we read much of "The Histories". This for me got a bit tiresome, as I wanted to learn more about Kapuściński's travels and experiences. However, his conclusions that he draws from the past and how he applies them to his own experiences is quite interesting. It provides a lot to think about as to how we think about the past, whether or not we have really evolved as a people, and our role in the great scheme of things.

Kapuściński 100% had a crush on Herodot omg

I enjoyed this book a lot, although it wasn't exactly what I was expecting. A coworker recommended Kapuscinski's work to me, and I was curious to read a non-Western (or, at least, a non-typical European) view of the global South. The blurb for this book says that it's about his travels and seeing the non-Western world for the first time, but it's really more of an analysis and ode to Herodotus and his "Histories." The stories about India, Ethiopia, China, what is now the DRC, and other places are more anecdotes that relate to whatever part of Herodotus he is reading/analyzing. I'm assuming that some of Kapuscinski's earlier books, which are more focused on specific regions, are more detailed and describe his experiences in those countries more specifically.

However, despite it being different than I assumed, it's a really lovely book. Kapuscinski, often drawing from Herodotus, makes some really insightful statements about the world, globalization, and the shared human experience. He does make a few generalized statements that I, as a global studies major, was skeptical of, but for the most part he writes as an open-minded journalist, so when he is expressing an opinion, it's not condescending or ignorant as some typical accounts of the global South sometimes are. He also had the benefit of experiencing what seems like every major political event on the continents of Africa and Asia in the second half of the 20th century. He lived in Poland, and after Stalin's death, he first went to India, and then to China, where he saw Mao's rule before the Cultural Revolution. He spent time in Ethiopia while Haile Selassie was still the emperor, was in what is now the DRC right after independence, before even Lumumba took power (and wow, do I want to know what he thought of that situation; hopefully it's covered in more detail in "The Shadow of the Sun"), he arrived in Algeria (on a tip from a friend in Dar-es-Salaam) the morning after the coup d'etat that removed Ben Bella, and he was in Iran for the last few weeks of the Shah's reign in 1979. I'm amazed (and jealous) at the sheer amount of major events that he was present for.

Anyway, overall, I would definitely recommend this book, although expect a lot of discussion of Herodotus. Kapuscinski provides an interesting perspective, using his experiences and Herodotus' writing, and I look forward to reading more of his work.

One of my favorite books.

Dette er nærmest tre bøker i en, hvor ikke alle tre er like interessante:

1. En bok om Kapuściński sine reiser som journalist fra den første turen til India til de sene turene til Afrika.
2. En bok om Kapuścińskis forhold til Herodot, og om forholdet mellom hans egne reiser og leseropplevelsene Herodot gir.
3. Tekster fra "Herodots historier", direkte sitater

De mange kapitlene veksler mellom de tre ulike typene tekster, og det tar langt tid å venne seg til å lese gjengivelsene av Herodots historier. Først mot slutten merker jeg at jeg blir fenget av de. Kapuścińskis forhold til Herodot er mer interessant, men heller ikke det er veldig interessant før jeg kommer et stykke ut i boken. Det er først og fremst Kapuścińskis egne opplevelser som løfter boken, og det er i de siste kapitlene at de tre bøkene forenes i en hel tekst som til slutt blir til et verk - og når jeg først har havnet der sitter jeg igjen med en storartet opplevelse. Men først da.

DNF @ 43%