Product Description

Restless, gripped by an overwhelming wish to make a name for himself in a world ever more hemmed in by progress and 'civilization', Thesiger (1910-2003) embarked on his amazing journeys across Saudi Arabia's Empty Quarter to test himself and to show what could still be done. The result was a monument both to his resilience and to the Bedu who guided him and who emerge as the book's real heroes. Great Journeys allows readers to travel both around the planet and back through the centuries – but also back into ideas and worlds frightening, ruthless and cruel in different ways from our own. Few reading experiences can begin to match that of engaging with writers who saw astounding things: Great civilisations, walls of ice, violent and implacable jungles, deserts and mountains, multitudes of birds and flowers new to science. Reading these books is to see the world afresh, to rediscover a time when many cultures were quite strange to each other, where legends and stories were treated as facts and in which so much was still to be discovered.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #31362 in Books
• Published on: 2007-02-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

About the Author
Wilfred Thesiger (1910-2003) was a British explorer and travel writer. He was born at Addis Ababa, Abyssinia (now Ethiopia). Educated at Eton and Oxford, he worked in the Sudan Political Service and and later, for a year, as a Political Officer for the Ethiopian Emperor, Haile Selassie. He is best known for two travel books: Arabian Sands (1959) and The Marsh Arabs (1964).

Customer Reviews

clarification-part of an excellent series
this book is part of the Penguin great journeys series, which is a set of 20 books, each around 100 pages long and each extracts from the works of some of the greatest travel writers in history- Marco Polo, Herodotus, Mas'Udi, Anton Chekhov, Mark Twain etc. The books have different titles from the larger works from which they are extracted and each book showcases some of the best writing by that particular author. Collectively, they are an outstanding series, individually, they provide an excellent introduction or taster of each writer. In this case, Wilfred Thesiger's travels across parts of arabia.

Not a complete book
This book is only 90 pages long and is only an extract of Wilfred Thesiger's Arabian Sands. There is nothing in the write up to tell you this and it is therefore a bit misleading.

The Tanned Siger
I can come back to this little book many times, granted it is a snapshot, but it was my introduction to this series and it opened a door to the rest and all of thier travels, loved it.