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Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 910 EAN: 9780141442075 ISBN: 0141442077 Label: Penguin Classics Manufacturer: Penguin Classics Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 400 Publication Date: January 02, 2008 Publisher: Penguin Classics Studio: Penguin Classics Editorial Review: Product Description: Arabian Sands is Wilfred Thesigers record of his extraordinary journey through the parched Empty Quarter of Arabia. Educated at Eton and Oxford, Thesiger was repulsed by the softness and rigidity of Western lifethe machines, the calling cards, the meticulously aligned streets. In the spirit of T. E. Lawrence, he set out to explore the deserts of Arabia, traveling among peoples who had never seen a European and considered it their duty to kill Christian infidels. His now-classic account is invaluable to understanding the modern Middle East. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Thesiger was thirsty for water and I was thirsty for plot!I live most of the year in Saudi Arabia and saw this book at a local bookstore. I was attracted by the cover, reviews, inside photography, and the author's opening comments. I purchased it hoping I would get a greater understanding of the world I live in before the influence of Western luxuries/conveniences. I also thought it would be an enjoyable true-life adventure story. Thesiger was drawn to the bedu setting from of his disdain for the onslaught of technological progression which ... Read More Rating:  - archetypal saga of exploration and adventureNot only a magnificent travelogue chronicling travels in in a harsh, surreal landscape, here we see the age-old yearning of the explorer to discover the things which cannot be found among the comforts and conveniences of civilization,chief of which is a knowledge of what kind of man he will prove to be when tested to his utmost. Though Thesiger never promotes his undertakings as spiritual experiences,it becomes evident that surely they have as much right to be called so as any other avowedly represented ... Read More Rating:  - Outstanding Chronicle of Exploring the Empty QuarterAfter you read this, you'll never think the same of the "Empty Quarter" which encompasses much of the south of the Arabian Peninsula. First of all, you'll find it's not so empty, with the nomadic Bedu plying the dunes and oases of the region as they have for centuries. In fact, this story is primarily about the Bedu who are incredibly tough but also incredibly principled. Their moral code could teach us a lot. Their love for their camels, who literally enable them to live in their hostile geography, ... Read More Rating: - The magnificent obsessionThe Rub Al Khali, the Empty Quarter, or as the Arabs called it, The Sands, is one of the most inhospitable places on earth, and one of the least populated as a result. Like Mt. Everest, or the South Pole, each of which became the obsession of some men, sometimes costing them their lives, the Empty Quarter became an obsession of Wilfred Thesiger. He was not the first Westerner to cross it, Bertrand Thomas was, in the `30's, and then Harry (Abdullah) St. John Philby after him, but Thesiger is deservedly ... Read More Rating: - Thesiger's Arabian SandsI had heard this was the definitive work on the desert country but never had gotten around to reading it. I now have and it is terrific - every thing it's cracked up to be. I had read Michael Asher's biography; I had been in Ethiopia, Oman and Yemen; I traveled in the Hadhramaut -- all of this over fifty years later but still there is the flavor of Thesiger's days. His writing of crossing the Empty Quarter was a precursor of Asher's more recent writings about desert travels. He writes well and keeps ... Read More |
