Product Description

Ryszard Kapuscinski witnessed and reported major wars, coups and revolutions as they happened throughout the developing world and global South. In this distillation of his reflections accumulated from a lifetime of travel, he takes a fresh look at the Western idea of the Other: the non-European or non-American. Looking at this concept through the lens of his own encounters in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and considering its formative significance for his own work, Kapuscinski traces how the West has understood the Other from classical times to colonialism, from the age of enlightenment to the postmodern global village. He observes how today we continue to treat the non-European as an alien and a threat, an object of study that has not yet become a partner in sharing responsibility for the fate of the world. In our globalised but increasingly polarised post-9/11 age, Kapuscinski shows how the Other remains one of the most compelling ideas of our times.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #162071 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 100 pages

Review
Kapuscinski saw more, and more clearly... than nearly any writer one can think to name. Few have written more beautifully of unspeakable things. Few have had his courage, almost none his talent. His books changed the way many of us think about nonfiction. --New York Times Book Review

About the Author
Born in Pinsk (in what is now Belarus), the celebrated Polish foreign correspondent RYSZARD KAPUSCINSKI is the author of, among others, Shah of Shahs, Imperium, Shadow of the Sun and, most recently, the memoir Travels with Herodotus. His books have been translated into twenty-eight languages. He died in 2007.

Customer Reviews

An interesting idea beaten to death
If you are looking for another book of Kapuscinski's global travel writings with those perceptive observations on all that he saw especially in rapidly developing or changing countries, then I fear this slim item is probably not for you.

Sadly it seems with his recent death (2007) and a seeming lack of unprinted travel writings, this book may evidence a danger of our seeing books printed that are at risk of ruining the man's hard earned lifetime reputation.

The book is a collection of lectures given by the author to different Central European forums, the earliest one being 1990 but the majority being from late 2004. The subject of all the lectures is the same and an interesting idea, being the impact of how we have interacted in our approach to people from other continents and cultures throughout history. The dangers of the European attitude especially, to other cultures (the "Other" of the book title) and how in a more easily traversed globe having a colonial "centrism" mindset wastes opportunities for interaction and mutual improvement is well made.

The problem is the same point is made repeatedly in the different lectures and by the end of the 80 odd pages, the repetition gets as frustrating as it is enlightening. The book is also not helped by having a lecture style that is very formal and intellectual, one assumes in part driven by the audience the author was addressing. Continual references to certain writers and anthropologists most of whom are one suspects not well known, in turn suffers from repetition especially in the cases of Levinas and Malinowski.

The main benefit of the book is to make some very simple perceptive observations on the subject which get the reader thinking but as a fully conceived and structured body of arguments, it was frustrating to read.

For completists only?
First, I should point out that I am a big fan of Kapuscinski, and the slightly negative score is not a reflection of his writing in general. However, this "book" is really just a very short collection of lectures which Kapuscinski gave around his general conception of the "other". To be honest, even then it is more a distillation of the thoughts of the philosophers who influenced him in this regard. Overall, it all feels very superficial, without any real penetration. Add to the fact that each lecture effectively repeats the same points as the previous one (they weren't envisioned as a series, but are just separate talks he gave in different places on the same theme), and this becomes an expensive book for the ridiculously small amount of original content. I suspect Kapuscinski would have been dismayed to think this was being sold as one of his books. If you are a first-time reader of K, please don't judge him on this. Go and read "The Shadow of the Sun" instead, and you will get a much more complete and fascinating understanding of Kapuscinski's experiences with the "other". If you have read everything else he wrote, then this slim volume might have some value for you (it isn't bad or uninteresting per se, just less complete than I anticipated).

The Other - very good
Hi,
I would like to say this is book is good for everyone - I definately recommend it.
Thanks