Sahara: The Extraordinary History of the World's Largest Desert [Paperback]

Marq de Villiers (Author), Sheila Hirtle (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2003

In the parched and seemingly lifeless heart of the Sahara desert, earthworms find enough moisture to survive. Four major mountain ranges interrupt the flow of dunes and gravel plains, and at certain times waterfalls cascade from their peaks. Even the sand amazes: massive dunes can appear almost overnight, and be gone just as quickly. We think we know the Sahara, the largest and most austere desert on Earth—yet it is full of surprises, as Marq de Villiers reveals in his brilliant and evocative biography of the land and its people.

“If you traveled across the United States from Boston to San Diego, you still wouldn’t have crossed the Sahara,” writes de Villiers, painting a vivid picture of this most extraordinary place. He charts the course of Atlantic hurricanes, many of which are born in the Tibesti Mountains of northern Chad, and offers a fascinating disquisition on the physics of windblown sand and the formation of dunes. He chronicles the formation of the massive aquifers that lie beneath the desert, some filled with water that pre-dates the appearance of modern man on Earth. He marvels at the jagged mountains and at ancient cave paintings deep in the desert, which reveal that the Sahara was a verdant grassland 10,000 years ago—a cycle that has been repeated several times.

Woven through de Villiers’s story is a chronicle of the desert’s nations and people: the Berbers and Arabs of the north; its black African south, whose ancestors peopled the greatest empires of Old Africa; and the extraordinary nomads—the Moors, the Tuareg (the famous “blue men”), and the Tubu—who call the desert home today. Illuminated by the eloquent written testimonies of past travelers, Sahara is a glittering geographic tour conveying the majesty, mystery, and abundance of life in what the outside world thinks of as the Great Emptiness.

Editorial Reviews

Review

This is a cool book about one of the world's hottest places -- National Geographic Adventure

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Walker & Company (September 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802776787
• ISBN-13: 978-0802776785
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #386,577 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #85 in Books > History > Africa > North Africa

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A complete turkey!, July 17, 2005

By 

C. Scott - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sahara: The Extraordinary History of the World's Largest Desert (Paperback)

It is generally unavoidable to write about history while not having been there, but it is surely indefensible to attempt to describe the geography of a region with virtually no firsthand experience.The authors start off promisingly by dismissing the customary romanticism laid on the Sahara as "outsider thinking": the "pitiless sun" being no more than the "pitiless traffic" of Fifth Avenue. Thereafter great empires of West Africa are well accounted for (lifted from a previous book of the authors?) but beyond that, and their visits to Niger and Timbuktu, they get in a complete muddle. The howlers start from page 9 when we learn that the Tanezrouft is an erg and later that In Salah is "an epicentre of the oil industry" and Leptis was dug out of the sand. The nature of the harmattan wind also happens to contradict all previous sources, Ghat is an all but abandoned Tuareg camp and - get this - the canyon of Iherir contains the Sahara's only perennial river! This is a clanger of Saharan proportions but will hopefully bring some income to the poor village of Iherir when the whitewater brigade turn up.The problem is that the authors have been to the Sahara just a couple of times, more than most it is true but surely not enough to attempt a book such as this? One gets the impression they fell for the enigmatic Tuareg (as you do) and thought "heck, let's write our new book about Sahara and those shimmering courtly nomads!" Anyone who would dare take on such a task surely ought to read French and German. Perhaps this is why the authors quote repeatedly from a limited range of the usual English-language sources: Barth, Nachtigal plus Africanus and other ancients and the few Brits like Clapperton that put pen to paper. But they use these 19th century explorers as if they were as reliable as anyone and relevant today - including ancient spellings; have they not even heard of a Mich 741 map? Having done a lot of their groundwork for them fifteen years ago, Porch's excellent 'Conquest of the Sahara' gets a good work out, while Heseltine's 'From Libyan Sands to Chad' (1955 and a great little classic) is the veritable horse's mouth for Chad and the Tubu (so never mind about Jean Chapelle's 'Nomads Noirs du Sahara' then). And last but not least is the Encyclopaedia Britannica (online version...) for all those last minute queries. What a give away. Elsewhere the embellishment is irritating if to be expected - though you would have thought not in the "moonscape" Aïr, one of the few places in the Sahara (apart from Timbuktu) where the authors have actually been. They certainly do not appear to have visited the desert areas of Morocco, Chad, Sudan, Algeria, Tunisia, Mauritania or even Egypt, or have nothing accurate to say about these places.But I liked the section on weather and also got a better understanding of the eminence of Old Ghana in the heyday of the trans-Sahara trade. In the end though, the authors prove that they too are outsiders - overlooking or skimming vast parts of Saharan geography like the Gilf Kebir (and not just the 'Western Desert'), the Tassili and Akakus, the distinctive Moorish culture and the Reguibat and the ongoing Tubu rebellion. They extrapolate from maps whose context they misunderstand: we learn that "dunes cover most of Western Sahara" while long-abandoned Tagheza somehow overrules Taoudenni today as a source of salt. They miss out on contemporary political upheavals too, as if they wrote the book 20 years ago. So it is that comprehending the Tuareg rebellion in Niger, (something which has set the Tuareg back years and was one of Micheal Buckley's better achievements in Grains of Sand) isn't allowed to interfere with eulogies on their preternatural guiding abilities, etc; the same, tired old Tuareg schtick.The trouble with making stuff up or guessing is that, besides making a fool of the authors, the reader does not know what else is fictitious and so the book's value is lost. Like it or not, Europe is the source of the greatest works on the Sahara, either through direct historical connection or learning. The definitive work on the Great Desert will, or may already be, written in French or German. This book certainly is not it.

Chris S

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best, most sweeping account of the Sahara, December 4, 2003

By 

Seth J. Frantzman (Jerusalem, Israel) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sahara: The Extraordinary History of the World's Largest Desert (Paperback)

This masterful account of the Sahara is hard to surpass. Few books detail the Sahara and when they do they usually take the form of either purely scientific accounts or purely historical accounts. This book is one part history, one part geography, one part travel journal and one part science. The authors detail separate sections on the history of the Sahara, the peoples of the Sahara, the winds, the water, the geography and the wildlife. A special chapter covers the lifestyle of the Taureg tribesman. Special mention is made of the Islamic slave trade and the salt trade. Maps cover the many tribal groups, the amazing geography made up of Massifs and a map dedicated to the underground aquifers. Many wonderful photographs detail everything from a desert Hilton to the beautiful sand dunes to the people and wildlife of the Sahara. The Sahara is as large as the United States and includes a vast array of cultures and landscapes including the Qattara depression, and has over 2 million inhabitants. A must read for anyone interested in Africa, geography or extreme places.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Makes me want to visit the place!, January 25, 2007

By 

Newton Ooi (Phoenix, Arizona United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sahara: The Extraordinary History of the World's Largest Desert (Paperback)

I have never been to the Sahara, or even Africa, and had no intention of doing so until I read this book. Looking at the natural and human history of this area of the world, the book's text is an intersection of the various fields of geology, botany, ecology, geography, history, climatology, and surprisingly, even hydrology. The authors (there are two of them) have written a book that describes this area from North to South, from the Atlantic to the West, to Red Sea in the East. They cover all sorts of topics, from the aquifers that lie below the sand dunes, to describing the insect life above it, to the salt trading paths that criss-crossed these dunes. The book also examines how various human societies have come to live in this desert, sometimes in spite of it. These include native societies such as the Tuareg, Berbers, and more recent ones such as the various Arab nations. The book is written with a slight liberal tilt as one can sense the respect for nature and native societies, and the critique of modern societies. All in all though, it was a very interesting read, and I highly recommend it.