Hugh Pope (1)

Thirty years is a long time and while I don't think Hugh Pope spent all of tho0se thirty years researching his book, Dining with Al Qaeda, I think the thirty years gave him plenty of time for him to collect the juicer antidotes. Pope covers everything from culture to society to politics and of course, war. Even though Pope's experience begins in 1980 there isn't a logical layout to the format of the book and chronological order is almost nonexistent, making the text feel disjointed and, in some places, messy. However, despite being a seasoned journalist with the Wall street Journal, Pope takes on a tone of conversation and casual - something he admittedly was striving for. To further lighten the mood Pope included revealing photographs (all taken by him).… (meer)

Sons of the Conquerors is an interesting history and review of the current statuses of the Turkic peoples and their nation states from Turkey to western China and their diasporas into the West.

Hugh Pope, the author, bases the book largely on his personal experience as a reporter visiting or stationed for most of his career in Turkey and other areas of the Turkic world. His analysis is not deep in an academic sense, but it is interestingly based on a lot of first hand experience.

A good read and you will learn a lot about interesting (or even pivotal) areas of thw world that are otherwise not well known in terms of books.… (meer)