Travel Book reviews and recommendations

"As a young journalist trying to establish his bona fides Schmidle chose to live in Pakistan for two years. He learned the native language and immersed himself in its culture. He describes the people, places, and events that he experienced in lyrical, almost poetical language. Despite the difficulty in following the unfamiliar Pakistani names of people, organizations, and cities, Schmidle takes the reader into the dynamics of life in this amazing country. Schmidle spent time visiting the hinterlands of Pakistan where factional groups are fighting each other, where tribal structure pits regions against each other and against the central government of the country, where antiAmerican sentiments dominate, and where Islamic extremism is persuasive to the people. He visited madrassas where young boys and girls are instructed and indoctrinatedin the Islamic faith; he became a confident of some we might consider terrorists; he talked with and witnessed the activities of Talabon fighters. While Schmidle makes great effort to be impartial in his reporting, he paints a picture of the Muscharef government, an ally of the United States, as a repressive regime that terrorized the people of Pakistan to hold onto power. Schmidle shows how ordinary Pakistanis view the Talibon as heroes who bring order and stability into ungoverned and lawless regions, but how their extremist religious views and cruel punishment of those who oppose them often turn the populace against them. TO LIVE OR TO PERISH will give you a different insight Pakistan and Afghanistan that will help you to make more informed judgment about American intervention in Afghanistan, how the people of the region perceive the world and particularly the West, and what we can expect from our efforts to bring democracy to those countries. It is a must-read for those who don't want to take for granted the standard media picture of American intervention in the Middle East, but rather want to make their own decisions about how we can best protect ourselves against the threat of global terrorism. "

"Pevsner provides the most remarkable and authoritative insight into the architecture not just of Berkshire (this volume) but the whole of the country. His style is not only engaging and understated, but imbued with an immense wealth of knowledge and a deep-seated appreciation of the quirkiness that makes English architecture so particular. This is a masterpiece, and should be on the bookshelves of everyone who lives in any of the localities described (old Berkshire, including the former Borough town of Abingdon, with its magnificent County Hall, the extraordinary Almshouse 'triangle' and the East St Helen Street - the 'best' street in the town). There is no nook or cranny of the county that Pevsner did not manage to cover, and very, very few houses or buildings of importance that he did not manage to talk his way in to. "