- Paperback: 416 pages
- Publisher: Flamingo; New Ed edition (1 Oct 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0007127057
- ISBN-13: 978-0007127054
- Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.8 x 2.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
700,993 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #37 in Books > Travel & Holiday > Countries & Regions > Asia > Myanmar (Burma)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
‘Every few years there comes along a first book by an unknown author that makes you want to stand up and applaud. This is such a book. This is a story of real, risk-taking, old-fashioned travel, not pre-paid by a publisher or faked by a television company. Beautifully written and illustrated with colour photos and maps, it deserves to become a classic.’ Maggie Gee, Daily Telegraph
‘Tucker’s adventure is a throwback to the heroic age of travel…endlessley fascinating and well informed on this little known region of Asia…outstandingly well written in the insouciant Peter Fleming tradition…the most unusual and distinguished travel book I have read for years.’ Robert Carver, Times Literary Supplement
‘I read it with growing amazement. What a journey and what a lot of research since! Very impressive!’ Robin Hanbury-Tenison
Product Description
An adventure story of real risk-taking and the heroic age of travel.
Ten years ago, at the age of 53, Shelby Tucker set out to cross Burma on foot from China to India when land access to Burma was forbidden. Tucker had a rucksack, a diary and some inaccurate maps. He recruited a 6ft 4in Swede, Mats, whom he had met on the train to Beijing.
Near the beginning of their walk through the jungle they encountered a group of naked boys bathing – they realized too late that their Chinese Army uniforms were on the banks. With typical sangfroid, Tucker leapt in to join them, shouting incomprehensible English greetings…
Before long they were in the hands of the Kachin Independence Army and managed to survive many near misses with the Burmese Army. Despite pain and constant danger, Tucker recorded each day the vivid beauty of the country, and the courtesy and hospitality of the Kachins (the most important of Burma's hidden colonies, about whom very little has been written).
Among Insurgents was Colin Thubron's Book of the Year, The Guardian's number 1 travel hardback and the Sunday Times' number 2. It recevied warm acclaim from Anthony Sattin ('packed with insights into tribal identity and the opium trade'), Robert Carver ('outstandingly well written in the insouciant Peter Fleming tradition'), Sara Wheeler ('a thrilling book') and it must surely be shortlised for the Thomas Cook Award.
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First Sentence
Some years ago, in the company of a young Swede and units of two armies at war with the military junta that rules Burma, I walked from China, through the Kachin hill country of northern Burma, to India. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Some years ago, in the company of a young Swede and units of two armies at war with the military junta that rules Burma, I walked from China, through the Kachin hill country of northern Burma, to India. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
An Oxford-educated American lawyer in his fifties walks across Northern Burma to fullfill a ambition held since his student years. How he achieves this, the dangers encountered en route, the various insurgent groups met, the cause that unite them against a powerful and ruthless enemy, the cameraderie of men under strain, the nobility of a man when tested to the limit of his courage, the beauty and grandeur of what is one of the last place on earth yet to be explored are the subjects of this book. But even more remarkable than the story itself is the author's extraordinary gift for writing. From the moment I began reading Among Insurgents, I was aware of experiencing something both rare and and deeply inspired. I did not read, as much as savour the profound humanity as well as the poetry and humour expressed in this book and consider it the most unusual and distinguished travel book I have ever read.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
'Among Insurgents' by Shelby Tucker is more than a travel book. This extraordinary account of a fifty-four year old writer's trek across war-torn Burma from China to India has about it - to use 'Fitzgerald's phrase - 'something glorious'. It is the unique blend of high adventure with the lucid and passionate exposition of his Kachin escorts' struggles against a corrupt government (bolstered by misguided Western military aid) that looks set to make this a classic. Merciless in its ironic - and at times very amusing - exposure of folly (not least his own), lyrical in its description of this little-known land and its peoples, and illuminating in its astute political/historical analysis, this is, by any measure, a remarkable achievement.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
9 reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
More reviews on behalf of the US distributor, Palgrave
25 Oct 2000
Format:Hardcover
"I read the book over the weekend and laughed my head off. What an addle-pated odyssey it is. The nonchalance with which he does things that could get him locked up in some bamboo cage for thirty or forty years takes my breath away. I've seldom been more aware of the thinness of the line between courage and lunacy. Luckily for his narrative, he is aware of it too, and has great fun jumping back and forth over it. I take my hat off to him, both for actually doing what he did and for writing so well about it." --Tobias Wolff
"I cannot recommend Among Insurgents highly enough. Shelby Tucker describes a quite extraordinary trek across the genuinely remote and dangerous mountainous north of Burma. His account gets to grips with an immensely complicated political scenario and is written in the classic manner. I was reminded quite often of Fitzroy MacLean and Peter Fleming." --Justin Wintle "To one familiar with the dangers inherent in such an enterprise, the story almost defies belief. A 53-year-old American teams up with a 22-year-old Swede, whom he has met on a train and known for less than an hour, with the aim of trekking across one of the most inaccessible and least explored areas on earth, in a country which, everyone recognizes, is ruled by a military autocracy and which has been engaged in a vicious civil war for nearly half a century." --Stephen Morse
"I read it in growing amazement. What a journey and what a lot of research since! Very impressive." --Robin Hanbury-Tenison
"I think [Shelby Tucker] may have written a classic of modern travel writing." --John McEnery
"Among Insurgents is a vastly impressive piece of work and life. Shelby Tucker may be a mad man, but he certainly writes wonderfully." --Peter Wolf
"I read it at one sitting, with my wife providing earthly sustenance at intervals, and thoroughly enjoyed the adventure. The vitality and freshness of the enterprise shone throughout." --Robert Pelletreau
"Those of us who would never go on such an adventure (and that's most of us!) can have something stirred within us, feel a little freer, more willing to take risks, after reading this book." --Fred Fenton
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Dances with Leeches
30 July 2000
Format:Hardcover
'Among Insurgents' by Shelby Tucker is more than a travel book. This extraordinary account of a fifty-four year old writer's trek across war-torn Burma from China to India has about it - to use Fitzgerald's phrase - 'something glorious'. It is the unique blend of high adventure with the lucid and passionate exposition of his Kachin escorts' struggles against a corrupt government (bolstered by misguided Western military aid) that looks set to make this a classic. Merciless in its ironic - and at times very amusing - exposure of folly (not least his own), lyrical in its description of this little-known land and its peoples, and ulluminating in its astute political / historical analysis, this is, by any measure, a remarkable achievement.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Exceptional and most unusual travel book. Highly recommended
24 Aug 2000
Format:Hardcover
An Oxford-educated American ;awyer in his fifties walks across Northern Burma to fulfill an ambition held since his student yesrs. How he achives this, the dangers encountered en route, the various insurgent groups met, the cause that unites them against a powerful and ruthless enemy, the cameraderie of men under strain, the nobility of a man when tested to the limit of his courage, the beauty and grandeur of what is one of the last places on earth yet to be explored are the subjects of this book. But even more remarkable than the story itself is the author's extraordinary gift for writing. From the moment I began reading Among Insurgents, I was aware of experiencing something both rare and deeply inspired. I did not read, as much as savour the profound humanity as well as the poetry and humour expressed in this book and consider it the most unusual and distinguished travel book I have ever read.
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