Baghdad Sketches

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating stuff!
Review: A very worthwhile glimpse into mid-20th Century Baghdad - this series of essays paints intriguing pictures of the streets, the culture and the decline of Colonialism in a country that used to be our Middle-Eastern ally. Much better than her later books.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent insight into humanity
Review: An excellent book with timeless insight into humanity across cultures. Gives context to attitudes still prevalent today, demonstrated by long historic traditions. The writing has gems of phrases interspersed with diary like accounts of travels. Ms. Stark was definitely a woman ahead of her time.

Rating:
Summary: Freya Stark's Baghdad
Review: This book tells you something about the Baghdad of the half of the 20th Century, before the western powers first and then the Muslim fundamentalists mucked things up. But it tells you more about the period when a few women dared to travel to exotic places and who created books and travel sketches about them. Interesting also is that Freya wrote letters of support for the Anna of "Anna and the King of Siam". But that's another story.