Rating: 
Summary: helpful
Review: In less than two months I will be going to Uzbekistan as a Peace Corps volunteer. To read something like this book--slanted, intelligent, informative--is tremendously comforting. For instance, I now know how many bottles of peptol bismol to bring along with me, and that no, you don't really want say 'hello' to a police offier when you pass them on the street of Tashkent. Bissell is not trying to give you a travel guide or a history of Uzbekistan, though in parts he touches down in these areas. He writes unabashedly in the first person, signaling the reader that while his observations might be smart and well-drawn, they are, of course, still filtered through the author's own prejudices and partialities, as are most books. In spite of that, or maybe because of it, this has been my favorite pre-service read as of yet, something that should be reccomended not only to past and future PCV's (though for some reason its not on the list of books in the Volunteer handbook...hmm.), but to people merely wanting an engaging read. 'Chasing the Sea' fully captures without romanticism the grit, strangeness, and beauty that comes with traveling in an economically-hardened country unexplored and avoided by most Americans, and issues a much-needed cry for help for one of the world's largest man-made disaster areas, the Aral Sea. In addition to that, something that might only apply to future Uzbekistan PCVs, it has increased my desire not only to visit and experience (Bissell has a scathingly true section on larval PCV writers.) Uzbekistan, but to do my best to serve the country that is hosting me, a place that, truth be told, I had never really been conscious of before. "One of those -stan countries.", "Where-the-hell-istan". Uzbekistan.
Rating: 
Summary: Great overview of Uzbekistan and the Aral Sea's demise
Review: _Chasing the Sea_ is one of the finer travel books I have read in some time. Author Tom Bissell set out originally to cover the tragic disappearance of the Aral Sea, a once large inland body of water shared by Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan that has been slowly choked to death since the 19th century by diversion of the water to grow cotton. Through the course of the book though he not only covers the Aral Sea but also relates his previous personal experiences with Uzbekistan - he served for a time as a Peace Corps volunteer - as well as his current travels. Though he left the Peace Corps, his love for this Central Asian nation didn't leave him and he felt compelled to return, not only to his host family but to the country in general. We learn that Uzbekistan is the second largest exporter of cotton in the world; though this achievement has not come without considerable cost (also amazingly enough they grow rice too). That this desert nation relies so heavily economically on such a thirsty plant is unusual, but Bissell details how the American Civil War cut off the supply of cotton, encouraging tsarist Russia to look for a new source. Demand for cotton only escalated during the Cold War. To grow the cotton, the Amu Darya River (known in antiquity as the Oxus) was diverted. This river, which forms part of Uzbekistan's southern border and the primary source of the Aral Sea's water, now no longer feeds into it at all. The formerly vast river, which once formed a huge inland delta, is now a mere creek at best as it reaches the receding shores of the Aral. The Aral Sea's certain demise sometime in the first few decades of the 21st century will have ugly consequences. As late as 1960 the Aral Sea was still the fourth-largest inland body of water in the world; now it is largely salt-crusted, dust-storm swept desert, much of this salt and silt poisonous thanks to decades of Soviet insecticides and dumped toxic waste. Moynaq, once a prosperous seaside community that had 40,000 inhabitants, was a favored beach retreat, and had a cannery that produced 12 to 20 million tins of fish a year; now over a hundred miles from the sea's present (and still receding) shores, it is a near ghost town with no jobs to speak of. Fishing ships lie where they were abandoned, resting incongruously in sand dunes. Now that the Aral Sea has thus far lost over 70% of its water volume it no longer acts to moderate regional temperatures; summers are hotter and winters are colder (possibly ironically dooming the very crops that are being grown at the expense of the sea). The two dozen fish species that were once endemic to the Aral Sea are now extinct (though other species were later reintroduced to the northern Kazakhstan portion). The formerly unique desert forests that surrounded the lake are long gone as well. More tragic still are those people who live around the Aral Sea. For over 600 years the Karakalpaks, a formerly nomadic people, have called these shores home. Now they are poor and unhealthy, as their industries - fishing, canning, and shipbuilding - have vanished and they suffer soaring rates of infant mortality, tuberculosis, and other diseases directly and indirectly related to the vanished desert sea. I don't however want to give the impression that this is a grim book, as there are many funny sections in it and Bissell is a talented writer. Nor is the Aral Sea the only subject covered. It is not even the main subject of this travel essay. Most of the book is devoted to Bissell's travels, most of them with a young Uzbek named Rustam, hired as a translator but becoming a friend as he journeyed throughout Uzbekistan, from the T'ien Shan Mountains and Ferghana Valley in the far east of the nation through Tashkent, Samarkand, and Bukhara. Along the way the author relates many interest aspects of Uzbek history and culture, including the days of the Mongols, Timur (known in the West as Tamerlane), the Samanid dynasty of 819-1005 (during which time Uzbekistan became a center of Islamic learning, producing the great doctor ibn Sina, known to Westerners as Avicenna, revered in the West as late as 1700s, and al-Khorezmi, from whose name the word algorithm is derived), the Great Game (the 19th century Cold War of sorts between Russia and the British for supremacy in Central Asia), and the rule of Islam Karimov. I found his portraits of the various cities the most interesting aspect of the book. Tashkent for example we learn is not only the most populous city in Uzbekistan but the most populous in Central Asia. It is also one of the most modern seeming Central Asian cities, as there is very little architecture older than about 50 years (owing partly to the fact that the city has been Russified since the late 19th century and partly due to a massive 1966 earthquake). Despite is appearances though this oasis city (its name means "Stone City") is over 2000 years old, making it one of the oldest extant cities in the world. For much of its history it was a "sporadically independent city-state" surrounded by a famous high stone wall sixteen miles long (now completely gone) and controlled at times by such various groups as the Arabs, Chinese, Mongols, and the Kazakhs. Bissell also has many asides in the book about Uzbek culture. He wrote of the very nature of Uzbek, an agreed-upon identity that is less than a century old; that in 1902 a Russian ethnographer noted that there were more 80 clan names in Uzbekistan, more important to them than any "Uzbek" identity. Indeed, Uzbek history in any form only stretches back to the 14th century, when a fierce group of nomadic invaders came down from the plains of southern Siberia. A good book, just wish it had pictures.
Rating:
Summary: GASP!!!
Review: The author of Chasing the Sea seems to have attracted an Amazon nemesis. His name is Elliot McGucken, who by my estimate has written 78% of the bad reviews here under his numerous assumed names. By all means, do a search for his books using Amazonian technology. Then laugh your head off. This guy has two talents. The first is a talent for not having any talent whatsoever. His other talent is for stupidity. I actually haven't read Chasing the Sea. I hadn't ever heard of it until Mr. McGucken started ranting about it elsewhere. But if Elliot McGucken hates it I bet it's probably okay.
Rating:
Summary: Very entertaining read about Central Asia after the USSR
Review: I'll say this straight out at first so those that would stereotype me can go on to the next review. I am a Marine and have spent time in Central Asia. I consider myself politcially moderate. I learned about this book in Outside Magazine, which I subscribe to. Anyone who subscribes to or reads Outside knows its political bent, and so once you are familar with its platform, you can enjoy it.
This is an outstanding book. The author was a Peace Corps volunteer after college and clealry fell in love with his host country, Uzbekistan, and its people. This story is about his return trip to the country several years later to research and write a book about the impending death of the Aral Sea, once the world's fourth largest lake. Mr. Bissell's prose is very solid, descriptive, and unique. He is masterful storyteller. He is essentially fair and neutral in this book, presenting both sides of almost every issue he addresses.
The only annoying aspects of his book come when he simply cannot resist the urge to go on brief politcial diatribes, such as when he claims Michael Gorbachev was a great man who has received no credit and Ronald Reagan was a mediocre man who receives too much credit for winning the Cold War. (Mr. Bissell was betwen the ages of 6 and 14 when Reagan was President, but he feels knowledgeable enough to conclude that Regan had no effect whatsoever on the downfall of the Soviet Union - this is probably something he learned in a college poli-sci class). Fortunately, Mr. Bissell is very credible without resorting to these polemics, but it is these unnecessary and irrelevant tangents that are the sole weakness in this otherwise outstanding story about Central Asia and its people.
Mr. Bissell's portrait is very accurate. Central Asia befits the saying, "It's like another world," because it is. But it is a stark and beautiful one, and although this region of the former Soviet Union is still struggling to lift itself out of the grave of its former oppressor, its people - an interesting mix of Asians, Muslims and ethnic Russians, are friendly and engaging. This book accurately captures these characteristics and stands as a fine civics and history lesson.
Rating:
Summary: Elliot McGucken
Review: He's a right-winger troll. Googling found mention of him on Free Republic, a tinfoil-hatter winger site, and Young America Foundation, among other places.
Take ANYTHING he says with a HUGE grain of salt.
Rating:
Summary: A good read. Fascinating and utterly depressing.
Review: A thanks to Tom Bissell for returning to Uzbekistan and writing this book. I truly enjoyed it, and learned much from it. I was also made thoroughly depressed by it. What should the relatively well-off average American citizen do, upon learning in so much detail of such environmental devastation and economic poverty? It is almost difficult to go on living normally--taking showers every day, for example--after learning in what circumstances others are living.
I had been expecting (like other readers, I think) more about the Aral Sea. On the other hand, the expectation of getting to the topic of the sea was one thing which kept me reading this book. This is not to say the adventures and historical interludes which precede the part about the sea were not interesting--in fact, they were riveting, astonishing. But I would have appreciated a clearer picture of what the book consists of before reading it. And, likewise, I would love (more than ever, now) to read a more comprehensive (but still journalistic) study of the Aral Sea. I suppose Bissell's book succeeds very well in providing, at the least, a good introduction to the subject.
My final comment: Bissell often expresses surprise at his translator's facility with English and his knowledge of Central Asian history throughout the book. He also shows some rather severe differences they have in opinion. I suggest to Bissell's translator that he write his own book about Uzbekistan (or....about his travels in America).
Rating: 
Summary: This is what he writes???????
Review: When Uzbekistan's former ambassador to the United States became interested in defecting to America, for instance, his daughter, Nadira Khidoiatova, was soon arrested on drug-smuggling charges. Khidoiatova was pregnant, and under Uzbek law was therefore supposed to have been released on bond. The Uzbek authorities sidestepped this nicety by forcibly aborting her fetus. The former ambassador, for his part, now lived under protection in the United States.
Rating:
Summary: Inaccurate Information
Review: Mr. Bissel needs to verify the facts before he actually writes them and publishes. His information about the former Uzbek Ambassador to the United States, is highly inaccurate. Starting with the fact that it was not his daughter that was arrested, and second of all, definately not on drugs charges. The only correct fact is that yes, she was forced to have an abortion.
I attended the book signing and wish that I scanned through the book while I was there, so that I could point that out to him directly.
Rating:
Summary: GASP!!!
Review: In less than two months I will be going to Uzbekistan as a Peace Corps volunteer. To read something like this book--slanted, intelligent, informative--is tremendously comforting. For instance, I now know how many bottles of peptol bismol to bring along with me, and that no, you don't really want say 'hello' to a police offier when you pass them on the street of Tashkent. Bissell is not trying to give you a travel guide or a history of Uzbekistan, though in parts he touches down in these areas. He writes unabashedly in the first person, signaling the reader that while his observations might be smart and well-drawn, they are, of course, still filtered through the author's own prejudices and partialities, as are most books. In spite of that, or maybe because of it, this has been my favorite pre-service read as of yet, something that should be reccomended not only to past and future PCV's (though for some reason its not on the list of books in the Volunteer handbook...hmm.), but to people merely wanting an engaging read. 'Chasing the Sea' fully captures without romanticism the grit, strangeness, and beauty that comes with traveling in an economically-hardened country unexplored and avoided by most Americans, and issues a much-needed cry for help for one of the world's largest man-made disaster areas, the Aral Sea. In addition to that, something that might only apply to future Uzbekistan PCVs, it has increased my desire not only to visit and experience (Bissell has a scathingly true section on larval PCV writers.) Uzbekistan, but to do my best to serve the country that is hosting me, a place that, truth be told, I had never really been conscious of before. "One of those -stan countries.", "Where-the-hell-istan". Uzbekistan.
Rating:
Summary: Not very good: new phenomena
Review: I was born in Central Asia, so I bought this book after reading a review, and I found it to fall far short of the review. The book smells too much like a creative writing workshop. The narrator is silly--his jokes continually fall flat and the one about the Nazi train cars bordered on the offensive. I came here to see if anybody else felt duped or cheated, and indeed they have--it was interesting to find out that parts of the book were plagiarized. Perhaps Tom Bissell could plagiarize more in the future. It could only help. The amazon reviews for this book are far more entertaining than the dreary tome itself.
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