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A review by abandonedmegastructure
Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuściński
adventurous
funny
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
Travels with Herodotus isn't really about traveling.
Half the book is formed by a small slice of Kapuściński's own life story. This was moderately interesting but felt rather incomplete without having read any of the journalist's other books and reports before; time and time again we'd get a narration of him arriving in some new Asian or African country, comment on his inability to actually be where news was happening, wander about lost, and at last leave again. The other half focuses on Herodotus's Histories, a book that Kapuściński took along on many of his travels. Parallels are occasionally drawn between the two travelers, separated by twenty-five hundred years, and if a locale is visited by both, this earns some mention.
Two lines of questioning become apparent throughout the book. Who was Herodotus? What drove him? What set him apart from all those around him? And secondly, the same question that Herodotus asks in the preface of his own book: what drives conflict between the peoples of this earth?
Kapuściński tries to answer these questions as well as possible. First, he concludes that Herodotus uniquely realized the shared humanity of all those he encountered, the fragility of our cultural narratives, the sobering acknowledgement that our nation, our people, our tribe perhaps aren't the center of the universe, and that this is what drove Herodotus to seek out and record all he could learn of the world's people. It's a powerful conclusion, and a compelling one, and I rather liked this part.
The other question is answered less well. The book (written in 2004) dedicates a large portion of its latter half to outlining the Greco-Persian wars of the 5th century BC. The portions of history are encyclopedic but serviceable, but the attempts to draw parallels to the modern day have aged less well. The fact that the book was written only a few years after 9/11 result in some awkward metaphors in which Athenian slaveholders and their tyrant-led allies get cast as champions of democracy bravely standing against Eastern despotism: a narrative that had its fair share of flaws twenty years ago, and by now fails to resonate as it presumably once did.
With the book's lines of questioning such a mixed bag, what else is there? The travel portions lack in detail, the excerpts of Herodotus feel ill-integrated. The meditations on journalism and traveling are decent. The book is eminently readable, and I worked my way through most of it in a day, but I would hardly say the wording was particularly compelling. All in all, a rather mediocre book, perhaps recommendable to Kapuściński enthusiasts but not to any who just want a good travel journey or historical analysis.
Half the book is formed by a small slice of Kapuściński's own life story. This was moderately interesting but felt rather incomplete without having read any of the journalist's other books and reports before; time and time again we'd get a narration of him arriving in some new Asian or African country, comment on his inability to actually be where news was happening, wander about lost, and at last leave again. The other half focuses on Herodotus's Histories, a book that Kapuściński took along on many of his travels. Parallels are occasionally drawn between the two travelers, separated by twenty-five hundred years, and if a locale is visited by both, this earns some mention.
Two lines of questioning become apparent throughout the book. Who was Herodotus? What drove him? What set him apart from all those around him? And secondly, the same question that Herodotus asks in the preface of his own book: what drives conflict between the peoples of this earth?
Kapuściński tries to answer these questions as well as possible. First, he concludes that Herodotus uniquely realized the shared humanity of all those he encountered, the fragility of our cultural narratives, the sobering acknowledgement that our nation, our people, our tribe perhaps aren't the center of the universe, and that this is what drove Herodotus to seek out and record all he could learn of the world's people. It's a powerful conclusion, and a compelling one, and I rather liked this part.
The other question is answered less well. The book (written in 2004) dedicates a large portion of its latter half to outlining the Greco-Persian wars of the 5th century BC. The portions of history are encyclopedic but serviceable, but the attempts to draw parallels to the modern day have aged less well. The fact that the book was written only a few years after 9/11 result in some awkward metaphors in which Athenian slaveholders and their tyrant-led allies get cast as champions of democracy bravely standing against Eastern despotism: a narrative that had its fair share of flaws twenty years ago, and by now fails to resonate as it presumably once did.
With the book's lines of questioning such a mixed bag, what else is there? The travel portions lack in detail, the excerpts of Herodotus feel ill-integrated. The meditations on journalism and traveling are decent. The book is eminently readable, and I worked my way through most of it in a day, but I would hardly say the wording was particularly compelling. All in all, a rather mediocre book, perhaps recommendable to Kapuściński enthusiasts but not to any who just want a good travel journey or historical analysis.