Books 2010: The traveller of his age
Nov. 16th, 2010 07:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hawkwing_lbBooks 2010: 136
nonfiction
136. Tim Mackintosh-Smith, The Travels of Ibn Battutah. Picador, London, 2002.
This text of Ibn Battutah's Travels has been abridged and annotated from the text of the four volumes produced by Sir Hamilton Gibbs and C.F. Beckingham for the Hakluyt Society between 1954 and 1994. In many ways, it does not feel like an abridgement: only seldom does one feel that there is something lacking, that one might desire something more.
Ibn Battutah's travels spanned over twenty years and the breadth of the then-known world. Born in 1304 in Tangiers, at the age of twenty-two he set out for the Hajj and doesn't seem to have looked back until much, much later. The abridged account presented here gives a fascinating and vivid set of pictures of the world which he experience - and which experienced him.
He frequently comes across as a judgemental asshole, but that's not unusual among medieval travellers, and his position as a qadi means he owned his fair share and more of religious biases. But it's a fascinating read, and one which is actually very accessible.
I recommend it.
nonfiction
136. Tim Mackintosh-Smith, The Travels of Ibn Battutah. Picador, London, 2002.
This text of Ibn Battutah's Travels has been abridged and annotated from the text of the four volumes produced by Sir Hamilton Gibbs and C.F. Beckingham for the Hakluyt Society between 1954 and 1994. In many ways, it does not feel like an abridgement: only seldom does one feel that there is something lacking, that one might desire something more.
Ibn Battutah's travels spanned over twenty years and the breadth of the then-known world. Born in 1304 in Tangiers, at the age of twenty-two he set out for the Hajj and doesn't seem to have looked back until much, much later. The abridged account presented here gives a fascinating and vivid set of pictures of the world which he experience - and which experienced him.
He frequently comes across as a judgemental asshole, but that's not unusual among medieval travellers, and his position as a qadi means he owned his fair share and more of religious biases. But it's a fascinating read, and one which is actually very accessible.
I recommend it.
