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.