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| The Places In Between | 
 enlarge | Author: Rory Stewart
Publisher: Harvest Books
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
Buy New: $2.85
You Save: $11.15 (80%)
Buy New/Used/Collectible from $2.71
Avg. Customer Rating:  (157 reviews)
Sales Rank: 3717
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.9
ISBN: 0156031566
Dewey Decimal Number: 915.810447
EAN: 9780156031561
ASIN: 0156031566
Publication Date: May 8, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Fascinating, if plodding at times. July 13, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Rory Stewart's tale of walking across Afghanistan is fascinating, nerve-wracking, but sometimes plodding in its detail and dryness. The story is compelling and gives a rare personal insight into the nature of life, politics, and relationships in a war-torn country.It is a book you can pick up and put down without losing the thread of the story.
 The reality of the Mid-East July 13, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Fascinating view of the real life and people of Afghanistan. The author is a unique 'whacko' (that's a compliment) explorer/adventurer. Everyone who wishes to understand the people whose future we have willingly or unwillingly become intricately involved with must read this.
This is a truly grounds-eye view of a culture so different from our own that it's almost incomprehensible to the Western mind. Definitely a "must read" for our ignorant politicians who foolishly believe that we can "reform" and democratize in our image the societies of the Middle East
A very curious book July 10, 2006
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I walked halfway across Afghanistan with Rory Stewart. It was enough.
But then I felt compelled to return to this curious diary and reflection on the author's rugged, snowy trek in the first months after the fall of the Taliban.
The premise is remarkable itself. Having completed, on foot, most of his trip across southwest Asia, events conspire to allow him to complete the missing piece. In early 2002, he flies to Herat to begin a miserable journey to Kabul. His route through the center of the country follows a leader from centuries ago, Babur, avoiding the remaining Taliban forces near Kandahar but facing harsh weather and terrain. He repeatedly states that he is interested in Afghanistan today, not its history, but he tells his own story along with that of Babur, long-lost historical sites, and earlier travel writers of region.
He is genuinely unimpressed with most of the people he meets. His expectations of Muslim-dictated hospitality are frequently not met. He also tells of some auspicious occasions when he imagines his trip will come to a violent end. He travels with a dog, also Babur; it is an important but difficult relationship. Perhaps coloring all of his adventure and his writing, he is sick with dysentery much of the time, often in villages without running water much less decent WCs. There is little joy: it is more akin to Slavomir Rawicz's The Long Walk (to and from a Siberian gulag) than Marco Polo.
But for students, and the general reader, there is much to be learned. One simple example is the local unit of measure for distance: how many days walk? Relatedly, letters of introduction, from regional or local leaders, are his essential travel items. As he advances, the letters from the various leaders become less valuable, until finally they are a liability and must be replaced by new letters from different leaders.
More broadly, Stewart's accounts reveal the real distance between the "new government of Afghanistan" and its people. Stewart's village leaders vary widely in kindness and sophistication. But the number of people who have never traveled even to the next village, the half-informed versions of world events, the various local interpretations of Islam, the oral histories of fighting the Soviets, the Taliban and the other villages - all these combine to make Western notions of democratic reform seem other worldly.
But his experience provides for a remarkable career move: as a British diplomat in 2003 he is appointed as a deputy governor in occupied southern Iraq. His account is forthcoming in The Prince of the Marshes (August 2006; it is available already in UK as Occupational Hazards). It will be, one can only suspect, a remarkably different insider-view than Bremer's My Year in Iraq or Diamond's Squandered Victory.
mystery and purity June 29, 2006
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
We never learn exactly why Stewart has such a fondness for walking out into darkness and snowstorms after days of diarrhea, crossing blindly over minefields, vaguely (but only vaguely) hoping not to be murdered. Who cares: his is an ascetic, oddly mystical journey, utterly compelling, plain and clear and beautiful. He doesn't understand it himself, or not entirely, and that's the point.
There are times when taking such risks becomes both privileged and disrespectful, however. I hope he keeps that in mind down the road.
Understated Humor with Sadness at the Core June 25, 2006
84 out of 89 found this review helpful
Writing with the understated humor in the best of Magnus Mills' novels (Restraint of Beasts, All Quiet on the Orient Express), Stewart accounts his long, arduous trek on foot through the brutal landscape of Afghanistan. Thought to be a spy, he is often accompanied by mysterious "guards" hired by the new government to supervise Stewart's meanderings. The conflict between Stewart and these guards provides much of the book's humor. But then about a third into the book, Stewart is offered a dog, a huge bear-like creature who is described as wise and weary. The dog, whom Stewart names "Babur," has been abused and neglected all his life and Stewart adopts him and determines to take Babur with him back to Scotland. For me, Stewart's tender relationship with the endearing dog Babur is the heart of the book. It will make you weep. This storyline alone makes the book worth reading. Of course, this book is much more than a man meets dog story. It is a firsthand account of the grotequeries that seethe within a country in a state of violent upheaval.
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