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 enlarge | Author: Tim Mackintosh-smith
Creator: Martin Yeoman
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy Used: $4.00
You Save: $10.95 (73%)
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Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 91794
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 368
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.8
ISBN: 0812971647
Dewey Decimal Number: 915.60453
EAN: 9780812971644
ASIN: 0812971647
Publication Date: June 8, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Creased on front cover corner. Stained on rear cover. Sound Copy. Mild Reading Wear.
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| Customer Reviews:
 A wonderful exploration and dispelling of Orientalism January 14, 2005
8 out of 12 found this review helpful
I purchased my copy of the book while visiting London. The title of the British publication is: Travels with a Tangerine: A Journey in the Footnotes of Ibn Battutah. Leave it to the US to change it to include Islam in its subtitle, a timely and opportunistic alteration while it continues its imperial Crusade in that region. Nevertheless, the book is great. Americans do need to understand that British and American English are different and one needs to have an understanding of that difference to truly enjoy the greatness of this book.
What I enjoyed most was the matter-of-fact manner in which MacIntosh-Smith maintains such great respect for the people of the Middle East and North Africa; he speaks from a level playing field, something often missing in American international travel writing. American author Paul Theroux comes close but there's still a sense of arrogance or superiority in his writings. But with MacKintosh-Smith, I felt my guide was a true humanitarian, seeing each person as a jewel, rather than a spectacle of a stereotyped "foreigner" we in the US have come to believe about anyone who isn't "American." But he IS the foreigner after all, isn't he? That's where the respect comes in; he recognizes he is the guest and should behave as such, and he does naturally.
There is certainly plenty of humor in the book though, despite he doesn't have to do it by poking fun at people for who they are; instead he chooses to poke fun at each individual incident. Very appealing for those of us who don't need humiliation of a different culture to lift us up to that superior post we think we hold, but who prefer recollections of incidental human follies and frailties that occur amongst all of us.
I don't want to write too much on the content; that's for you to read and enjoy.
 Pretty dry for a travel book January 12, 2005
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
I'm a huge fan of travel books plus a Moroccophile, so I thought this book would be just the ticket. Unfortunately the author's style is quite dry. He spends a great deal of time visiting tombs and non-existent shrines to saints. Really, it's quite boring. What about the food? The people? How the author (completely fluent in Arabic) manages to travel through such an interesting part of the world and not have daily random travel adventures is beyond me. I've had more adventure walking down the street to the produce shop.
I wouldn't recommend it to anyone unless they were really into shrines or liked Arabic poetry.
If you're looking for some great travel writing, try Bill Bryson's "In a Sunburned Country", Anthony Bourdain's "A Cook's Tour", or any of the short travel story collection books by Lonely Planet.
 How bad can it get ? December 4, 2004
5 out of 11 found this review helpful
I am very literate, educated and well traveled.I have read over 40,000 pages a year for twenty years, and have written a book. I never made it past page 85 of this messy manuscript. The overuse of prentious words was amazing, and the whole book, which could have been intresting was boring beyond belief. Give it a skip!
Greater than Marco Polo, Ibn Battuta, my 600 year old friend July 25, 2004
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
From a fragment in a Yemeni library retraces the some of the steps of the greatest traveller of the pre-industrial age. What is remarkable about this book is that Tim Mackintosh still encounters all the problems that Ibn Battuta did. In fact Ibn Battuta is a very modern traveller that we can empathise with, he gets a stomach bug, he wonders about getting laid, he gets ripped off by suspect guides and "wimps" out in one part of the story.
This book is not just a great travel book, but in the post 9/11 world it gives you another face to the Islamic World: the hospitality, the cultural diversity and rich culture.
Thank you very much Mr Makintosh-Smith for introducing me to our mutual 600 year old friend Ibn Battuta
Read and enjoy
Polymath tells all May 22, 2003
17 out of 20 found this review helpful
A retracing of some of the journeys (Morocco, Egypt, Syria, Southern Arabia, the Kuria Muria Islands,Turkey and the Crimea)of the fourteenth century traveller, Ibn Battuta.
The author is a British born and educated Yemen resident, fluent in classical and colloquial Arabic and deeply learned in history and music. The book contains quotations in French, German, Russian (in the Cyrillic alphabet), Turkish and Greek. I thought I'd caught him misquoting Pliny, but then realized he was making a Latin joke. Some of his polyglot puns are outrageous. In The Umayyad mosque in Damascus he found Ismailis and Shiites at prayer, but that the orthodox were keeping the Sunni side up.
The long digressions on obscure Arab writers and religious teachers and the intrusive parade of erudition might put some people off. It's a bit like reading Umberto Ecco where some readers, such as myself, get entranced by the writer's flattering assumption that we are as clever as he is.
He travelled rough and travelled alone. He explains at one point that he cannot marry because he is an "ah, orientalist." He shows much interest in, and sympathy with, the Moslem religion but I got the impression that. like his fellow orientalist, TE Lawrence, he likes Arabs best if they are poor and rural, a faintly patronizing attitude.
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