Kapuscinski: Approaching History Ryszard Kapuscinski: Travels with Herodotus

Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: Knopf 2007
ISBN: 1400043387

Young Kapuscinski started his career as a legendary journalist almost by accident. His will to "cross the border" led him to places he knew nothing about, his only guide being the classic The Histories.

Kapuscinski approached his work not only through traveling but also through history and literature. His writing - political travelogue - combined the best of both worlds: eyewitness accounts and historical analogies. His text is at the same time civilized but down to earth, generalizable yet high in details, true to the facts but stimulating and offering always a fresh perspective.

"Did I do the right thing, trying to escape into history? Did this ambition make sense? After all, we encounter in historical accounts the very same things such as we thought we could flee in our time."

His memoirs chronicle events from a remarkable career and an equally remarkable life - he was for decades the sole foreign correspondant for the Polish news agency covering Africa and Asia, witnessing revolutions, political turmoil and war all over the world. Kapuscinski also seems like a very humane man, stressing the importance of eternal questioning as the key to a fruitful life. For Kapuscinski approaching history through literature is the most important pastime meanwhile our life, quite naturally, approaches history too. In January 2007, old Kapuscinski caught up history as a similar epic figure as his idol, the first globalist historian Herodotus.

Second opinion: Tom Bissell / New York Times  ¶ 9/06/2007 11:05:00 ip.