Book 3: In an Antique Land - Amitav Ghosh

[ioplokon]

A really great book, though hard to categorize! It's partly a history of a slave mentioned in a 12th-century letter, an ordinary person spared from the anonimity that history usually accords to people in such roles. The other side of the book is a narration of Amitav Ghosh's time spent living in rural Egypt as a part of his research. The book is a very nice read, and Ghosh does a great job of holding together his historical research & episodes from life in Egypt in a way that demonstrates the stakes of the history he is creating, one which really focuses on the connections between people, the effects of colonization and development, and the preservation of the past. I ended up liking this one a lot - the writing is vivid and the subject matter is interesting. Plus I really appreciate his approach to narrative, where he is able to pull to light significant historical insights through his juxtaposition of these two stories.

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