- Hardcover: 352 pages
- Publisher: John Murray; First Edition edition (2 Oct 2008)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0719567114
- ISBN-13: 978-0719567117
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.2 x 3.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 419,617 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
'The most brilliant of the new generation of travelwriter-historians' -- Sunday Telegraph 'Justin Marozzi is that most precious rarity: a serious traveller who is also a real writer, with a wonderful feel for language, a gift for narrative and an enviable sensitivity and lightness of touch. Brave, romantic, erudite and humane, South from Barbary is a genuinely remarkable debut' -- William Dalrymple 'The perfect travel book ...observant, shrewd, patient and exceedingly well attuned ... It is a measure of Marozzi's skill that he handles the big themes of history and the small irritations of third-millennium camel travel with equal charm and felicity' -- Financial Times 'Excellent...a superbly rounded and vivid portrait of one of history's most fascinating personalities' -- Andrew Roberts, Evening Standard 'Captivating, a delightful and fortunate conjunction between the world of [Tamerlane] then and that world transformed today' -- Spectator 'Herodotus may have lived 24 centuries ago but he is our 21st century contemporary and companion - the father not just of history but of comparative ethnography too, not only a brilliant storyteller and indefatigable traveller but also a shrewd and tolerant observer of human fads and foibles on the grandest global scale. Justin Marozzi, himself a veteran traveller and journalist and intrepid crosser of cultural frontiers, does his hero full justice in this scintillating, thought-provoking and entertaining hommage' -- Paul Cartledge, Cambridge University 'A tour de force of travel writing' -- John Keay, Literary Review 'Intellectually stimulating but still able to raise a smile from the reader' -- Adventure Travel 'This is a book of remarkable substance and style, brimming with humanity' -- Jeremy Seal, Telegraph 'A tribute to the man acknowledged as "the father of history", who was also the world's first travel writer, a geographer, anthropologist, explorer and moralist' -- Bookseller 'This is a book of remarkable substance and style, brimming with humanity' -- Sunday Telegraph 'Intellectually stimulating yet still able to riase a smile from the reader' -- Adventure Travel 'It's a good excuse to return to his outlandish stories of war and the exotic sexual practices of forgotten cultures' -- Sunday Times 'Marozzi sets out faithfully to dog the footsteps of Herodotus, reporting the modern world in its customary warlike state' -- The Times 'This is a book of remarkable substance and style, brimming with humanity' -- Sunday Telegraph 'Marozzi's energy drives the book forward ... where (he) succeeds above all is in whetting the appetite' -- Financial Times 'The power of the story is the essence of this book and it is to Marozzi's immense credit that his storytelling is almost as good as his mentor's. Together they are marvellous' -- Sunday Herald 'Marozzi himself is an unambiguously Herodotean figure ... The English Patient ... inspired thousands to rish out and buy the Histories. This book deserves to have the same effect' -- Anglo Hellenic Review
Product Description
Herodotus is known as the Father of History, but he was much more than that. He was also the world's first travel writer, a pioneering geographer, anthropologist, explorer, moralist, tireless investigative reporter and enlightened multiculturalist before the word existed. He was at once learned professor and tabloid journalist, with an unfailing eye for fabulous material to inform and amuse, to titillate, horrify and entertain. In his masterpiece the Histories, tall stories of dog-headed men, gold-digging ants and flying snakes jostle for space within a mesmerising narrative of the Persian Wars, from which Greece emerged triumphant in 5 BC to give birth to Western civilisation. Using the effervescent and profoundly modern Herodotus as his guiding light, Justin Marozzi takes the reader back to his world with eclectic travels to Greece, Turkey, Egypt and war-torn Iraq.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The opulence, bawdiness and relevance of the Ancient World is brought to life in the captivating prose of one of this country's hottest young travel writers. The most enjoyable book on Herodotus, the rock star of historians, that I have read. Buy, read, learn - and enjoy.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Having studied Herodotus in my youth, I found Justin Marozzi's book both fascinating and accessible. I wish this book had been on the curriculum's reading list as my test results would have been considerably higher! This enlightening author has brought Herodotus into real life context, achieving an accomplished literary agility between academic insight and layman comprehensibility. Marozzi has created something which at once is both entertaining and informative. A rare talent indeed. I will now seek out his other books and watch intently for future ones.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book combines the good parts of Herodotus' book with a 21st century version as Marozzi follows the same routes. Some things change radically and some are just as they were. He combines information with great humour. highly recommended.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Fascinating
It's Marozzi's genius - compressing the span of centuries into a pithy phrase or a witty encounter - that makes this book so worth reading. Read more
Published on 7 Feb 2009 by L. Shorter
Wonderful
Herodotus is such an extraordinary character whose wide-eyed reports of things not seen (like gold-mining ants and) that I always rather disapproved of him, and wondered whether he... Read more
Published on 1 Nov 2008 by Travel Bug
History leaps of the page
Herodotus may be the father of history, but also very much a man for our times as civilisations clash and worlds collide. Read more
Published on 1 Nov 2008 by Eric Moore
History alive and kicking and contemporary
this is a great book about a figure we have all forgotten, making Herodotus contemporary, dynamic and exciting. Read more
Published on 1 Nov 2008 by Laura Sandys
Herodotus and the Booze Cruise...
Marozzi is the only writer I know who can take what is viewed as an 'academic' subject and make it meaningful to a non-academic reader. Read more
Published on 30 Oct 2008 by A Norfolk Reader
It's all Greek to me
Justin Marozzi is the new Xenophon, the new Tacitus, hell, he's as Venerable as Bede, he puts the "Mac" in Macaulay.
Herodotus rocks!
Herodotus rocks!
Published on 30 Oct 2008 by Gore Vidal
Great brew
This book is a really great brew. It has it all: crazy stories of excess, war and sex and a wonderful sense of both place and travel. Brilliant.
Published on 30 Oct 2008 by Erasing Maven
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