I have a brief review of this over on Goodreads. Ellis L. Knox’s review of The Marsh Arabs
I'm posting here to recommend the book to my fellow writers. When we look around for ideas, we often turn to literature, but this sort of travel book is another kind of source. The author spent several years with a people who have now all but vanished, victims of socio-economic change and undoubtedly done in by the Iraq wars. But Thesiger (the author) sees them in the prime, or nearly so (the advent of firearms made some big changes).
This was a people who lived a profoundly different life, for the lived in the heart of the vast marshes of the lower Tigris-Euphrates river. Thesiger gives us endless details about how they ate, the amazing reed houses they built, their boats, how they fished -- if you want to add a distinctive touch to your world, you could do no better than to look here.
If you like the book, several reviewers say that another of his books, Arabian Sands, is even better. That's an account of his life with the Berbers.
I'm posting here to recommend the book to my fellow writers. When we look around for ideas, we often turn to literature, but this sort of travel book is another kind of source. The author spent several years with a people who have now all but vanished, victims of socio-economic change and undoubtedly done in by the Iraq wars. But Thesiger (the author) sees them in the prime, or nearly so (the advent of firearms made some big changes).
This was a people who lived a profoundly different life, for the lived in the heart of the vast marshes of the lower Tigris-Euphrates river. Thesiger gives us endless details about how they ate, the amazing reed houses they built, their boats, how they fished -- if you want to add a distinctive touch to your world, you could do no better than to look here.
If you like the book, several reviewers say that another of his books, Arabian Sands, is even better. That's an account of his life with the Berbers.
