My Life and Travels: An Anthology [Paperback]

Wilfred Thesiger (Author), Alexander Maitland (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

Review

'One of the very few people who in our time could be put on the pedestal of the great explorers of the 18th and 19th centuries.' David Attenborough 'He belongs to an endangered species; he is one of the last, great gentlemen explorer-adventurers of our time.' Richard Holmes 'He dwells in a Homeric age of exploration and travel writing, an age before sponsorship and television tie-ins. He stands as a monolith against trash consumerist and trash celebrity culture.' Sara Wheeler

Product Description

An anthology of writings and photographs celebrating the outstanding contribution of one of the country's most distinguished and enduring travel writers, and the century's greatest living explorer. At the age of twenty-three, three years after attending the coronation of Haile Selassie, Thesiger made his first expedition into the country of the murderous Danakil tribe. Since then he has traversed the Empty Quarter twice, spending five years among the Bedu, followed by several years living as no Westerner had in the strange world of the Marshmen of Iraq. Later he made many mountain journeys in the awesome ranges of the Karakorams, the Hindu Kush, Ladakh and Chitral. After these varied and often dangerous adventures among fast-disappearing cultures, Thesiger settled down to spend over twenty years living mostly among the pastoral Samburu in Northern Kenya, until 1994 when he finally returned to England permanently. These experiences have, over the years, provided rich material for writings which express a romantic but austere vision, and for exquisite photographs which capture the spirit of a bygone era. This book contains extracts from the eight books Thesiger published to great acclaim between 1959 and 1998, most notably 'Arabian Sands', 'Marsh Arabs' and 'The Life of My Choice'.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Flamingo (October 6, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0006552129
• ISBN-13: 978-0006552123
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 4.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,211,247 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great book, June 3, 2007

By	lector avidus (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Life and Travels: An Anthology (Paperback)

Wilfred Thesiger was one of the great explorers of the age of the British Empire, perhaps the last great explorer. This book is a great collection of the most interesting articles describing his travels in Imperial Ethiopia, Darfur, the Sahel, Arabia, Kurdistan, the Hindu Kush and more, that will delight the reader who doesn't have the time to read the books from which the articles are excerpted.

I highly recommend it, but not as a substitute for the books in full.