Travels with Herodotus

By: Ryszard Kapuscinski

Narrated by: Nicolas Coster

Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

From renowned journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski comes this intimate account of his years in the field, traveling for the first time beyond the Iron Curtain to India, China, Ethiopia, and other exotic locales.

In the 1950s, Kapuscinski finished university in Poland and became a foreign correspondent, hoping to go abroad - perhaps to Czechoslovakia. Instead he was sent to India - the first stop on a decades-long tour of the world that took him from Iran to El Salvador and from Angola to Armenia. Revisiting his memories of traveling the globe with a copy of Herodotus's The Histories in tow, Kapuscinski describes his awakening to the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of new environments and how the words of the Greek historiographer helped shape his own view of an increasingly globalized world. Written with supreme eloquence and a constant eye to the global undercurrents that shaped the latter half of the 20th century, Travels with Herodotus is an exceptional chronicle of one man's journey across continents.

©2007 Ryszard Kapuscinki (P)2007 , 2017 Phoenix Books

Critic reviews

“Luminous...Like Herodotus, Ryszard Kapuscinski was a reporter, a historian, an adventurer and, truly, an artist.” ( The Wall Street Journal)

What a classic!!!!

This is one of the best books I’ve ever read. I feel blessed to have discovered Ryszard. This was my first and will devour everything I can now. The voice artist on this book read is the best.

What a book

And the narrator gives it that punch with its pace, voice and feeling.
The story, the colors, feelings, the questions, the prose.
Just amazing.

The father of journalism

This is an odd but engaging book. From a journalist whose life started in WW II Poland, continued in Poland behind the iron curtain and who covered crises across the third world across the cold war and beyond, I was expecting vivid stories and social and political insights into the countries he covered, with occasional nods to Herodotus. But Kapuscinski spends as much or more time discussing Herodotus as he does recounting his own life and observations, and his remarks on Herodotus are more vivid and personal. For someone who loves Herodotus, this is very enjoyable. But I would have enjoyed more about Kapuscinski's own life.

loved it

The long descriptions of battles and political intrigue in ancient times were a bit much, but his contemporary descriptions of his own travels were marvelous. I think I learned of this book from a book by Paul Theroux (he of the "gimlet eye"). Kapuscinski has the same compulsion for travel as Theroux without the cynicism.

One amazing journey to the wonders of different pasts

One amazing journey to the wonders of different pasts.
The author writes in a way that takes the reader to travel thru time.