Product Description

The author recounts his travels in the Empty Quarter of Arabia between 1945 and 1950, and describes the vanishing way of life of the Bedouins.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #208495 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 352 pages

Review

Praise for Arabian Sands:

‘one of the greatest travel books of English literature’
Sunday Telegraph

Praise for Among the Mountains:

‘a matchless portrait of a vanished world’
Daily Telegraph

‘the photographs alone make it worth a place on the traveller’s bookshelf’
Wanderlust

‘Here is true grandeur in the landscape and true dignity in the man’
Scotsman

From the Back Cover

With this book Wilfred Thesiger took his place among the few great Arabian travellers – not only as an explorer, but as a writer.

'Arabian Sands' covers the five years ending in 1950 which, with the exception of brief interruptions only, Thesiger spent in and around the Empty Quarter, the half million square miles of one of the cruellest deserts of the world. Before him, no othe trraveller European or Arab – apart from the Bedu who live there – had twice dared to cross those empty wastes. Travelling without European companions and living as an Arab, Thesiger's experience and knowledge of the desert life are unique – and will remain so, for the world he describes has vanished, succumbing to the invasion of technicians in search of oil.

Thesiger's account of the Arabian Sands and its people, its tribal warfare and ancient history, its daily life and landscape is widely hailed as a classic of Arabian travel literature.

'The crowning touches have been placed on this exploratory activity in Arabia by Wilfred Thesiger who is probably the greatest of all the explorers'
ST JOHN PHILBY

'This splendid book, magnificently illustrated with the author's photographs, is a feast.'
DAILY EXPRESS

'Wilfred Thesiger is perhaps the last, and certainly one of the greatest, of the British travellers among the Arabs'
LT GEN. SIR JOHN GLUBB, 'Sunday Times'

'A MJOR ADDITION TO THE LITERATURE OF EXPLORATION'
PETER WORSLEY, 'Guardian'

'THE LAST GREAT BOOK ON ARABIAN TRAVEL'
ECONOMIST

About the Author

Wilfred Thesiger was born in 1910 in Ethiopia. From 1930 Thesiger travelled through remote areas of Africa, the Middle East and Asia. His journeys and his books have won him numerous prestigious awards over the years. In 1968 he was made a CBE, he was honoured with a KBE in 1995.