Restless, gripped by an overwhelming wish to make a name for
himself in a world ever more hemmed in by progress and
'civilization', Thesiger (1910-2003) embarked on his
amazing journeys across Saudi Arabia's Empty Quarter to test
himself and to show what could still be done. The result was a
monument both to his resilience and to the Bedu who guided him and
who emerge as the book's real heroes. "Great
Journeys" allows readers to travel both around the planet and
back through the centuries - but also back into ideas and worlds
frightening, ruthless and cruel in different ways from our own. Few
reading experiences can begin to match that of engaging with
writers who saw astounding things: great civilisations, walls of
ice, violent and implacable jungles, deserts and mountains,
multitudes of birds and flowers new to science. Reading these books
is to see the world afresh, to rediscover a time when many cultures
were quite strange to each other, where legends and stories were
treated as facts and in which so much was still to be discovered.
Sir Wilfred Thesiger, geboren 1910 als Sohn eines englischen Diplomaten in Addis Abeba, verbrachte seine Kindheit in Afrika und studierte in Oxford und Eton. Nach dem Dienst in der britischen Kolonialverwaltung im Sudan in den dreißiger und vierziger Jahren reiste er auf abenteuerlichsten Wegen durch die Welt. Heute lebt Thesiger in London.
