Rating: 
Summary: Humorous and Insightful look at the Islamic World
Review: For anyone unable to get their hands around the "world's most combustable" region, or unwilling to risk their hide to see it first hand, this is the book to read. As a student who studies the region and has lived there I can attest Tony gets high marks for accuracy, fair reporting with a highly entertaining writing style.
A MUST read for any beginning to the area, and an important side read to the current political context.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent travel journal of an astute observer
Review: Horowitz is making a solid mark as a literary journalist with such works as Baghdad Without a Map and Confederates in the Attic. Each time he approaches his subject matter as an outsider, adding just the right amount of bumbling and crafty surveillance.
Rating:
Summary: In It, Not Of It
Review: Horowitz's great gift is the ability to experience his subject matter with gusto, and then to simplify and exaggerrate it into short chapters which mainly amuse the reader while converying something important. My favorite chapter records his adventures getting stoned on Khat bush leaves with a group of Yemenis, and then watching his journalist wife being interviewd on Yemen TV.He plays the tag-along husband to his wife's travels, which excuses him from being the serious one, or at least licences him to delve into the offbeat recluses of her assignments. This is V.S. Naipaul on drugs, with a wicked funny streak, patiently cataloging the absurdity of so much in the Middle East. This guy would find the same themes to write about wherever you put him down.
Rating:
Summary: An insightful account of life in the Middle East
Review: Horwitz has a wonderful eye for detail and a broad range of literary references. This is a very enjoyable book that at times packs a whallop, as was the case with his chapters on the Iran-Iraq War. Mostly though Horwitz takes you into the mind of the Arab, as best he can, presenting a broad range of portraits drawn from his experiences in the Middle East. What I like most is that Horwitz avoids the pitfall of judging the Arabs. Even when meeting Iraqi officials he is careful not to pass judgement but rather assemble as much information as he can, and that was no easy task in this repressive country. He scoots around with an Egyptian friend of his, taking in the panoply of Cairo life. He captures situations well such as a belly-dancing club in Cairo and the variety of Arabs assembled for this rather low grade affair. In Yemen, he takes part in qat sessions and offers notes on the gun trafficking that has made this country into one of the most dangerous places in the world. Horowitz covers a lot of territory and presents it in a way that is immediately accessible to the reader. So refreshing given some of the more pompous books that have come out in recent years such Bernard Lewis's attempts to explain the Arab.
Rating:
Summary: An insightful account of life in the Middle East
Review: Horwitz has a wonderful eye for detail and a broad range of literary references. This is a very enjoyable book that at times packs a whallop, as was the case with his chapters on the Iran-Iraq War. Mostly though Horwitz takes you into the mind of the Arab, as best he can, presenting a broad range of portraits drawn from his experiences in the Middle East. What I like most is that Horwitz avoids the pitfall of judging the Arabs. Even when meeting Iraqi officials he is careful not to pass judgement but rather assemble as much information as he can, and that was no easy task in this repressive country. He scoots around with an Egyptian friend of his, taking in the panoply of Cairo life. He captures situations well such as a belly-dancing club in Cairo and the variety of Arabs assembled for this rather low grade affair. In Yemen, he takes part in qat sessions and offers notes on the gun trafficking that has made this country into one of the most dangerous places in the world. Horowitz covers a lot of territory and presents it in a way that is immediately accessible to the reader. So refreshing given some of the more pompous books that have come out in recent years such Bernard Lewis's attempts to explain the Arab.
Rating:
Summary: Funny and Insightful
Review: Horwitz has delivered another very witty book that also enlightens. I have read his "Confederates in the Attic," an often hilarious writing that delves into the shadow of the Civil War in the current South. Like "Confederates...," "Baghdad Without a Map" is breezy, funny and illuminating. The author spent three years in the Middle East in the period before the Gulf War. Stationed in Cairo, this free lance writer visited Israel (during the Infatada) Lebanon (during active warfare), Iraq (during its war with Iran), Iran (during Khomeni's funeral), Yemen, the Sudan and The U.A.Emerites and Libya. In each country, he gets off of the beaten track to meet with ordinary people and delve into their daily existence. What emerges is a picture of life under Islam that as a whole is very much different from that experienced in the West, but one that also varies tremendiously among the individual countries. Each is shaped in a unique way by georgraphy, the relative lunacy of its political autocrats and history. The book serves to highlight some of the difficult problems facing many of the people in the region as well as the basic humanity and hope that can thrive even under trying circumstances. Horwitz does not laugh at the people he meets, in fact he is quite sympathetic to many of them he becomes acquainted with. However, many of the situations in which they are placed as well as Horwitz's response while diving into very different cultures from his own are often witty and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny in the hands of this skilled observer and writer. This is one of those books that will cause you to chuckle and guffaw even in places of public quiet like the commuter train on which I ride. His book is fast, very enjoyable and leaves the reader with something of substance after it's finished. A good book.
Rating:
Summary: Funny and Insightful
Review: Horwitz has delivered another very witty book that also enlightens. I have read his "Confederates in the Attic," an often hilarious writing that delves into the shadow of the Civil War in the current South. Like "Confederates...," "Baghdad Without a Map" is breezy, funny and illuminating. The author spent three years in the Middle East in the period before the Gulf War. Stationed in Cairo, this free lance writer visited Israel (during the Infatada) Lebanon (during active warfare), Iraq (during its war with Iran), Iran (during Khomeni's funeral), Yemen, the Sudan and The U.A.Emerites and Libya. In each country, he gets off of the beaten track to meet with ordinary people and delve into their daily existence. What emerges is a picture of life under Islam that as a whole is very much different from that experienced in the West, but one that also varies tremendiously among the individual countries. Each is shaped in a unique way by georgraphy, the relative lunacy of its political autocrats and history. The book serves to highlight some of the difficult problems facing many of the people in the region as well as the basic humanity and hope that can thrive even under trying circumstances. Horwitz does not laugh at the people he meets, in fact he is quite sympathetic to many of them he becomes acquainted with. However, many of the situations in which they are placed as well as Horwitz's response while diving into very different cultures from his own are often witty and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny in the hands of this skilled observer and writer. This is one of those books that will cause you to chuckle and guffaw even in places of public quiet like the commuter train on which I ride. His book is fast, very enjoyable and leaves the reader with something of substance after it's finished. A good book.
Rating:
Summary: The Middle East: Only the Low Points
Review: Horwitz, in Baghdad Without a Map, very clearly describes the world of the middle east - from the apparent perspective of an outsider highly disenchanted with Arabia. His observations and commentary probably closely resemble what most Americans would feel attempting to live in any of the middle eastern countries, but lack the appreciation and the love of another culture and place that marks great travel literature. However, he does provide the occasional clear insight into the middle eastern world, and his descriptions of the cities and countries he visited are vivid and sometimes fascinating. He provides a great deal of political information, an unusal element in travel writing. Depending on the reader's point of view, this can either be gripping or mind-numbing. He may have chosen to introduce this material because the remainder of the book is so often narrowly focused. His journalistic technique can be roughly described as "find a resident and talk to him." His portrayal of these people is interesting indeed, but the microscopic focus of his chapters can be wearying. I, at least, found myself wondering just how accurate a chapter could be if the author had interviewed only four people for it. I doubt that's an acceptable cross-section of the population. However, the single largest problem with this book is its unrelentingly negative viewpoint. Horwitz seemed to hate the middle east. Each chapter talks about corruption, stagnation, decay, and desolation, with no balancing positives whatsoever. I found it hard to believe that so many disparate countries contained nothing but variegated miseries. And the author's petty or narrow-minded complaints about some of the places undermined the effects of his justified remarks about the worst of them. Overall, though, an interesting book. It is a nice, light read, and it covers many different Arabic cultures. Horwitz writes well, with a good ear for dialect and a deft touch with his subjects. In short, this is a fascinating tour of the worst points of the middle east.
Rating:
Summary: Sharp, amusing reportage
Review: I can't think of a better starting point for the traveler to or student of the Middle East than this compact volume. It's very easy to slip into your carry-on luggage, and also easy to slip back into after you've been interrupted by some pilot or flight attendant on the PA system. It's wry without being morbid, open-minded without being flaccid. As a journalist, Tony Horwitz has a knack for pulling out revealing situations from a mass of travel experience of the kind that most people would rather forget. He has that rare gift for sketching in just a few lines a memorable scenario, which often encapsulates one or another of the persistent conflicts of our time. For example, in a half dozen or so paragraphs on Palestine and Israel, the reader sees why peace remains a 'process' instead of a reality. In a visit to a Palestinian village on the Jordan River, his translator not only translates from Arabic to English, but also transforms the innocuous statements of a farmer into the tirades of a hate-filled fanatic. On the other side of the Jordan, Israeli immigration makes note of Horwitz's Jewish name and waves him through, while the elderly Palestinian couple with whom he shared a taxi to cross the border must endure a strip search and interrogation. More fascinating still are Horwitz's sketches of places seldom in the news: Yemen, where an entire country, even the president, whiles away its time in a narcotic stupor induced by a chewable shrub called qat; Sudan, where Arabs still make slave-gathering forays after all these centuries and where leprosy is still a problem after all these centuries; Iran, where a revolution, like so many other revolutions, was great for awhile, but which now has become an oppressive burden. Perhaps this Iran piece is the most valuable of all the gems in Baghdad Without a Map. It's like a tiny flashlight shone into a vast realm of darkness. There is a fascinating passage on the covert socializing between the sexes which must give some idea of what it was like to be young and in love in the time of Torquemada. It might aptly be called 'The Mini Skirt Beneath the Chador'.
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't Put it down
Review: I couldn't. Took it to the beach on a very windy day, felt like I was there. I thought it was a great book.
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