Customer Reviews

The World's Most Dangerous Places

5 star:		(73)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

I've heard Robert Young Pelton speak, and he is, if anything, even more thoughtful and provocative in person. He has written an extraordinary book that ordinary people will take to be a sensationalist travel guide, while real experts scrutinize every page for the hard truths about the real world that neither the CIA nor the media report.

Unlike clandestine case officers and normal foreign service officers, all of them confined to capital cities and/or relying on third party reporting, Robert Young Pelton actually goes to the scene of the fighting, the scene of the butchery, the scene of the grand thefts, and unlike all these so-called authoritative sources, he actually has had eyeballs on the targets and boots in the mud.

I have learned two important lessons from this book, and from its author Robert Young Pelton:

First, trust no source that has not actually been there. He is not the first to point out that most journalists are "hotel warriors", but his veracity, courage, and insights provide compelling evidence of what journalism could be if it were done properly. Government sources are even worse--it was not until I heard him speak candidly about certain situations that I realized that most of our Embassy reporting--both secret and open--is largely worthless because it is third hand, not direct.

Second, I have learned from this book and the author that sometimes the most important reason for visiting a war zone is to learn about what is NOT happening. His accounts of Chechnya, and his personal first-hand testimony that the Russians were terrorizing their Muslims in the *absence* of any uprising or provocation, are very disturbing. His books offers other accounts of internal terrorism that are being officially ignored by the U.S. Government, and I am most impressed by the value of his work as an alternative source of "national intelligence" and "ground truth".

There are a number of very important works now available to the public on the major threats to any country's national security, and most of them are as unconventional as this one--Laurie Garrett on public health, Marq de Villiers on Water, Joe Thorton on chlorine-based industry and the environment--and some, like Robert D. Kaplan's books on his personal travels, are moving and inspiring reflections on reality as few in the Western world could understand it--but Robert Young Pelton is in my own mind the most structured, the most competent, the most truthful, and hence the most valuable reporter of fact on the world's most dangerous places.

What most readers may not realize until they read this book is that one does not have to travel to these places to be threatened by them--what is happening there today, and what the U.S. government does or does not do about developments in these places, today, will haunt this generation and many generations to follow. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who cares to contemplate the real world right now.

After receiving this book as a gift, I ignored it's incredible white-pages size girth and began reading about everyplace in the world myself, as an American and Westerner, should avoid, and for what reasons.

Written as a true guidebook for aspiring war-zone journalists and adventurers, DP doesn't skimp on the facts nor gloss over details that might decide your life or death in the most war-torn (Chechnya, Algeria) or statistically dangerous (Colombia, Cambodia) countries on the Earth. With well over 30 countries examined, you'll learn first hand why a Westerner shouldn't visit there, followed by detailed descriptions of who to avoid, what regional areas to steer clear from, and in case you really want to experience life on the wild side or if you really need that Solider of Fortune byline, how to get in and out without dying.

Most fascinating to me is the rating system DP gives to certain countries. You'd be alarmed to learn why places such as Ethiopia gets a solid 5 star avoidance rating (constant, recent war with Enteria and the abundance of landmines) yet other tradionally Western-unfriendly places like Iraq and North Korea (rated "safer" than even America) due to their brutal punishment of minor crimes and police-state environments.

With well over 200 pages of "helpful" research involving which transportation to avoid in any country, how to walk around various types of land mines, and what penalties you can expect for smuggling drugs out of the mountanious roads surrounding Pakistan, this book is an almost guilty, factual read that never impresses on the reader the author's morals. I kept reading from county to country, hoping that the next alphabetical sequence was somehow more deadly or destructive for visitors than the last. An incredible abundance of recent (DP is in it's 4th edition) web-links for the various rebel factions and government parties kept me interested well after I put the book down.

Most country chapters are supplemented by the author's (or contributing author's) true, diary-like details regarding what he went through during his experience "in country".

I have read this book (in this version and it's earlier editions) several times, and I still cannot get enough. This is due to several reasons.

First, because I have found Pelton's accounts of various places I personally have been to be accurate, I trust the author. And trustworthiness is an important characteristic of a writer in Pelton's position - ie. advisor to individuals contemplating travel into some of the world's most dangerous places.

Second, I keep going back to DP because I enjoy Pelton's style. He is a no-nonsense, "tell it like it is" guy...but he never loses his sense of humor - an essential quality to have when traveling in places that are dangerous, uncomfortable, or inconvient.

Third, I find this book invaluable, not only because of the travel advice dispensed, but also because, for me, reading each new edition of DP is like getting an update in worldwide current events - but NOT from the network TV drones who report only what America wants to hear! No...Pelton tells us the TRUTH - from the inside. Not some watered down, American-propagandized version. For example, I admired Pelton a few years ago after I spent a year in Russia and central Asia: his coverage of Russia and Chechnya was excellent - and accurate. And nothing like what was reported on American TV.

It is for this last reason that I would recommend DP to anyone - not just to those considering travel to the world's war zones and crime centers. It it not just about travel - it is an annual education in world events!

Thinking of going to someplace dangerous? Not sure if it's dangerous or not? Not even considering it, but want to read up anyway?

Pelton can help you. He and his colleagues show every sign of actually going to most of these places, or of interviewing people who did. In the sort of laconic, matter-of-fact style you'd expect of a seasoned mercenary, Pelton tells you what you'd need to know to either survive the trip or (more likely) sensibly decide to go somewhere else.:)

What's really attractive about this book, which is roughly the size and shape and thickness of an almanac, is the absolute wealth of information in it. Scores of links to websites. Chapters on countries, including historical and cultural notes. Chapters on crime categories. Stuff on diseases. Tables comparing countries in certain categories (air fatalities, for example). Arguably it should be in the reference section although it's pretty hard to defend moving it out of the travel section. In any event, it makes a wonderful companion to an almanac as a way of learning more about the rest of the world. Refreshingly, the United States (Pelton is Canadian) gets listed and its hazards considered just like any other country.

Recommended either as travel information or as a reference on world cultures.

To my readers

When I first stumbled across this listing a few months ago I wrote the publisher directly and told them in no uncertain terms that I felt the electronic publication of a 8 year old book on conflict zones with the marketing copy representing it as new or revised was not only deliberately misleading, but frankly dishonest.

I asked them to review the content and to see why it would be a potential liability for them to sell this as anything other than a very old book repackaged in a new format. Not one word of this book has been updated nor has there any attempt by the publisher to update this book

I offered to buy the rights to my book back if there was any confusion about my seriousness.

I received a polite apology and I was assured that this was simply a mistake as they went through their analog products and digitized them. They assured me they would not publish it as an electronic book and we began discussions on updating or publishing a new version.

Confident that they would not be publishing DP5 in kindle I let the matter rest and got back to working on the totally new 6th Edition of the World's Most Dangerous Places for release this September. Then this appeared.

I fully intend to self publish DP6 if this publisher does not want to. This would be in keeping with my intent, since I first self-published this book in 1993 and updated it up to three times a year. The World's Most Dangerous Places has been in continuous publication for 18 years and sadly this publisher (who has the publishing rights) continues to sell this book for almost a decade without allowing updates. Frankly that is just not fair to readers.

I won't blame anyone except to say that this should not have happened.

Readers who want updates on travel to war zones and dangerous places should go to the Black Flag Cafe forum where seasoned travelers and professionals have been helping other people make informed decisions.

For the record, this book was published in 2003 just before the invasion of Iraq and contains material that may be relevant and entertaining but also contains information that is outdated. The publisher has not offered to update it since then.

The decision to publish this was in no way endorsed or supported by myself.

Thank you

RYP

[...]

It took about five months, but I read all thousand pages of The World's Most Dangerous Places, known to its fans as DP. The book is a breezily written cyclopedia of what can go wrong and where as you travel the world.

Presented in a gazetteer format, DP first devotes several chapters to the different ways you can die or wish you had (stepping on a land mine, being kidnapped, intestinal flukes). The heart of the book is the 24 following chapters devoted to different dangerous places.

Pelton and his contributors write in a jokey, jaded style. Congolese president Joseph Kabila Junior is judged to be more sane than his father and "hasn't been quite so bad so far, but, to be fair, it might just be that he hasn't had the time -- what with his country hosting an eight-way war, and all." The authors note the dangers of being an American. "You don't have to go to a war zone to get killed. Sometimes belligerents will track you down and kill you without your leaving the hotel." The security situation in northern Algeria: "Death comes at random if you're a local, and by special delivery if you're a foreigner. You might be safer jogging around downtown Mogadishu wearing 10 gold Rolexes and a stars-and-stripes cape."

Humorous tone aside, Pelton and his reporters -- two of whom died between editions, one being shot in the face by a Russian soldier -- accurately summarize the history and the players in many of the world's hot spots. For example, Pelton explains the differences among al-Fateh, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade and the three separate groups that call themselves the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Pelton, who conducted the first media interview of "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh on the evening of Lindh's re-capture, is particularly informative regarding Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pelton explains how the United States had a hand in creating the madrassas which churn out anti-American jihadis because, during the 1980s, they churned out anti-Soviet mujahideen.

If anything, the book's breadth of knowledge can be disorienting. When discussing the conflict in the Caucuses, Pelton makes the offhand observation that one of the now-dead Chechyan warlords led troops who "were veterens of the war in Abkhazia."

Of course! The war in Abkhazia! If anything gets my undies bunched, it's the way the U.S. media is constantly yapping about the war in Abkhazia! WTF? (Abkhazia, it turns out, is a coastal province of Georgia which, with no small Russian prodding, declared itself an independent nation. Abkhazian separatists are fighting the Georgians, and Chechyan irregulars, apparently insufficiently challenged waging war against the Red Army in their homeland, crossed the border to fight against the Russians and the Georgians. WTF?)

What it is to view the world through such mordant eyes. DP's most ascerbic criticisms are directed at the African kleptocrats. Former Zaire strongman Mobutu Sese Seko owned 25 villas across the world and "his numerous offspring will live well on the boulevards of Paris." A correspondent at De Gaulle Airport describes "men in expensive suits with huge tribal scars [and] mountains of luggage in bursting cardboard boxes and metal 'caisses,' or coffin-sized steel boxes with large, brass, Chinese-made locks" filed with scotch, perfumes and other luxury goods.

Not that Pelton is a knee-jerk cynic; praise is given where it is due. "Maybe some of the press hailing [Nelson Mandela] as a secular saint can get to be a bit much, but it's really not much more than he deserves," Pelton writes. "He was the principal reason that postapartheid South Africa didn't drown in a sea of blood . . . . One needs only look north to Zimbabwe to see how badly it could have turned out."

Zimbabwe is possibly the most dangerous place on earth, especially if you live there. Almost half of the population is HIV+, with a life expectancy of 34 years for women and 37 years for men, and those numbers are getting worse, according to the WHO. Madman dictator Robert Mugabe blames the crisis on his two favorite bogeymen, homosexuals and the British government, and also, in a charming act of synthesis, on homosexuals in the British government. The country was racked by famine, and Mugabe's response was to order the white farmers to stop growing food and leave. Mugabe capitulated to extortion from marauding thugs claiming to be war veterens and got the payoff money by turning on the printing presses, causing hyper-inflation. "He seems to have gone bonkers in a big way," admitted Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Faced with such appalling facts, DP tries to find the humor. Zim warlord Chenjerai "Hitler" Hunzvi selected his own nickname, which "pretty much renders any other biographical data redundant." And has there ever been a politician with a name as preposterous as the late Reverend Canaan Banana? (A 1982 law prohibited the making of jokes about his name, according to the Telegraph. Luckily, the law only applied within Zim.)

There is one significant surprise tucked away in DP's thick binding. For all the camo and gun talk and machismo, Pelton is a bit of a bleeding heart. "Anyone who chooses to die for something should be listened to very carefully, and possibly corrective action should be taken," Pelton writes about terrorism. "Whether you agree with these groups or not, you do need to pay close attention to what they are saying and why they are being so damned obnoxious about reminding us about it on a regular basis."

"A few angry people can change the course of history."

Pelton's humour and knack for commonsense carry this book. It carries plenty of information packaged in well-organized sections, which makes it great for leisure reading.

I've read it several times over the last year and remain impressed with the humanity and cheer with which he writes. In many ways his friendly, live-with-the-locals style of travel is a perfect antidote to the Lonely Planet syndrome, which has travelers bunking with other backpackers at guesthouses and haggling every last shekel out of the most kindly third-world merchants.

I've been to a couple of these places and found the dangers overstated in the book, but that may be a function of the book's age.

Unfortunately, it appears that some sections of the book are very poorly edited, and by now, the third edition is long out of date. I would never use it as my sole source of information on a place, but it's a wonderful way to get a quick idea of what's happening where, and what you might have to do if you're unlucky enough to find yourself there.

Prior to my recent retirement from the above agency, I had frequent occasion to familiarize myself with the goings on in the more dangerous parts of the world. Although the U.S. State Department web site had valuable information, NOBODY had the quality, reality based information that Robert Young Pelton does. In fact I purchased one of these books for each of my subordinates. I also met Pelton in Colombia, and I gotta tell you that he has more cojones than anybody I have ever met in my life. He is truly the real deal.

Robert Young Pelton and his staff at DP have compiled a hefty (1000 + pages) travelouge of the most dangerous places in the world, rated from 2 stars (bad rep) to 5 (be afraid - be very afraid.) The book, in a word, is marvelous.

Some of the information is common sense ("don't flash your cash"), but much of it is extremely valuable - from carrying a "drop" wallet (with photos, a little cash and cancelled credit cards) to foil theives, to how to avoid landmines and what to do if approached by stoned, armed, pre-pubescent soldiers (as is too common in many parts of Africa.)

The first third of the book details how the rest of the world isn't as "dangerous" as one may be led to believe; the remainder is a veritable encyclopedia of information by country, including the political climate, (and major players and groups), diseases and other hazzards (like mines), and several valuable tips unique to each country. Simply fabulous.

Of particular interest to those traveling in dangerous places are the addresses of American (and Canadian and British) embassies, good hotels (considering where you are ...), recommended prophalyxis before arriving, common diseases, and areas to be avoided. The amount of information contained in this book is simply staggering. I highly recommend it.

I recently reread Twain's Innocents Abroad and followed it up with Pelton's TWMDP. Twain would approve. Pelton's prose is starkly cynical in all the right places and for the right reasons. Twain looked at the 19th century conviction that mankind was on an upward spiral of inevitable progress with a most jaundiced eye. He would read Pelton's missives as vindication of his darkest views. Pelton's book is a sober reminder that the world is a place of staggering complexity where tribalism, terrorism, and technology unite to mock any notion that history as progress is little more than a vapor. The book should be required reading for any student of history, world affairs, or politics.