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Bezig met laden... Baghdad without a Map and Other Misadventures in Arabia (editie 1992)door Tony Horwitz
Informatie over het werkBaghdad Without a Map and Other Misadventures in Arabia door Tony Horwitz
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Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek. Interesting and sometimes entertaining. > The colonel, apparently, just happened to be passing the El-Kabir and thought he'd pop in for a quiet cup of coffee. Only to find two hundred reporters who had been waiting frantically for thirty-two hours for something to justify their plane bill, their hotel bill, their planned layovers in Rome on the return trip. Qaddafi, for all his madness, knew how to get the media's attention. > Even Egyptians regarded their southern neighbor with distaste. Sudan was filthy and poor, they observed without irony, and the Sudanese were lazy. This from a country where a government survey once concluded that the average Egyptian worked twenty-six minutes a day > In Muglad a hole was measured in man-lengths—a well, say, was “six men deep”—and the scale came with an ethnic proviso. Arab or Dinka? If Dinka, each man-length was at least six inches greater. This was excellent. Most 90s travelogues don't stand the test of time, but this one is a sweeping shoes-on-the ground compilation of stories with representation of most Middle Eastern Countries. It gives a good flavor for Middle East culture and politics up until just prior to the Iraq invasion by Western forces. Baghdad in the mid 1980s was such a volatile place to be. For Tony Horwitz to be bombing around (pun totally intended) Arabia was insane. There he was, in a land where even local weather reports and maps were banned. Think about it. As a left handed, Jewish stringer, he was not the most popular person to be wandering about those parts of the middle east. He met many people who exclaimed, "Death to America!" before gushing about Disneyland or Hollywood. Despite the dangers and hatreds, his narrative is more than slightly tongue-in-cheek and a lot more than a little funny. He scoffs at roadblocks manned by a 7' cardboard soldier (while the real military gets stoned on qat). He makes light of millions of crushing fanatics at Khomeini's funeral. He jokes about not being able to find his wife cloaked in a chador. At the same time as being funny, he is keenly observant. One of my favorites notes - while middle eastern air travel is not the safest; the oxygen masks made be missing, but at least passengers know which direction they should bow their heads in prayer thanks to a "Mecca indicator" on the ceiling of their aircraft.
Indeed, nothing was forever happening to him. Much of the book describes the long hours he spent curled up at airports or waiting to interview some third-level government official who was unlikely to tell him anything, anyway. Not that this makes for dull reading. The waiting gave Mr. Horwitz the time to contemplate the absurdity of the situation he happened to be in. Onderdeel van de uitgeversreeks(en)
With razor-sharp wit and insight, intrepid journalist Tony Horwitz gets beyond solemn newspaper headlines and romantic myths of Arabia to offer startling close-ups of a volatile region few Westerners understand. His quest for hot stories takes him from the tribal wilds of Yemen to the shell-pocked shores of Lebanon; from the malarial sands of the Sudan to the eerie souks of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, a land so secretive that even street maps and weather reports are banned. At an oasis in the Empty Quarter, a veiled woman offers tea and a mysterious declaration of love. In Cairo, "politeness police" patrol seedy nightclubs to ensure that belly dancers don't show any belly. And at the Ayatollah's funeral in Tehran a mourner chants, "Death to America," then confesses to the author his secret dream -- to visit Disneyland. Careening through thirteen Muslim countries and Israel, Horwitz travels light, packing a keen eye, a wicked sense of humor, and chutzpah in almost suicidal measure. This wild and comic tale of Middle East misadventure reveals a fascinating world in which the ancient and the modern collide. -- Back cover. Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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Google Books — Bezig met laden... GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)915.60453History and Geography Geography and Travel Geography of and travel in Asia Middle EastLC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:
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