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Summary: Desert reflections from a great non-fiction writer
Review: I became interested in this book when I read an excerpt in The Atlantic--the macabre section on people (usually Europeans) who lost their way in the Sahara and died of thirst has stayed with me ever since. For example, there are names for the stages of thirst that are based on the liquid you're willing to drink, descending from urine to gasoline and antifreeze. Not all of the book is like that, of course, but that's the kind of detail that Langewiesche has at his disposal. He makes you see and feel the desert. You learn about the Sahara in all of its beauty and ugliness. Some passages remind me of Ondaaje's The English Patient, they paint such a forceful picture of the landscape.
Rating: 
Summary: As a travel/adventure book it's ok...
Review: I got caught up in the hype over this book. Bought it. It's an OK book... but not much more. Maybe if I hadn't been caught up in the go-go and then came face to face with reality I would have enjoyed it more. First of all the book is short. Small and short. I was expecting a big book with big adventures, big gripping stores and/or lots of pictures. Wrong. Second, the author comes across as a bit snooty--not a lot, but enough. There was more than one occasion I didn't particularly care what he thought, did, or where he was, and I wondered "Why am I reading this??". Yet, there were other times when I was on the edge of my seat. So, if you've got the $$ and the inclination go ahead and buy it. But if you don't have either, ah, forget. You really won't be missing all that much.
Rating:
Summary: Well written with some flaws
Review: I have to agree with the reviewer who comments that Langewiesche scores well on his description of the land but poorly with the people.This was an enjoyable read and visit through the Sahara but all the while I kept thinking that he had a chip on his shoulder regarding the Tuareg/Tamashek people. He refers to the Tuareg as a culture inappropriately romanticized by the Europeans. And while he explores their struggle to retain their customs and independence, he spends little time examining the impact of the creation of boundaries across the lands which they traversed. Beware as well that while the journey is depicted as making it all the way to Dakar, the focus of his writing is on time spent in Algeria. Use this book as a good introduction to the desert. But look farther to learn more about the Kel Tamashek.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but the context is needed
Review: I think the book is good (although not quite objective) from the educational point of view. A lot of down-to-earth experiences and descriptions are presented here.
Things to keep in mind: the author mingles mostly with local 'elite' (if you can call it that). The author has mostly negative feelings towards anything Western (culture, people, etc), forgetting that the techology designed (and for the most part) built in the West is running majority of the countries he went through. If you would like to have a context in which to read this book, consider:
"The Wealth and Poverty of Nations", by David Landes and "The Clash of Civilizations", by Samuel Huntington.
Rating:
Summary: Smart, insightful, sensitive
Review: Langewiesche conjures a place that is terrible and beautiful at the same time. He's a bare-bones traveler who somehow gets inside every village, hut, and head he encounters...then spills it back on the page with a spare, gritty poetry. I've read all three of his books..."Cutting for Sign" and "Inside the Sky" are more of the same clean, investigative journalism with passages that make the reader want to pack up and hit the road...or skies. I just read his latest piece in "Atlantic", and I only hope we will soon see a book about Deep Ecology and its effects on developing nations. He would do a fantastic job!
Rating:
Summary: not another gushy advertisement for a foreign country
Review: sahara unveiled is a beautiful description of a stark environment, but travelers wanting to be talked into a desert excursion should avoid this book. langewieshe is frank in his vignettes describing the natural and human dangers of desert travel, the contempt for westerners he found in various african countries, the crass autocracy of customs officials in bunkers located -- quite literally -- in the middle of nowhere. some passages are riotously funny, others tragic: the whole of this book is poetry.
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Summary: A Great Book
Review: Sahara Unveiled was one of the most interesting books in a long time. Langewiesche travels through Algeria, Mali, and into Senegal. Also included is a fascinating chapter taking place in Mauritania, a country for which there doesn't seem to be much interest. This book is not just a travel book about the author's adverture through a relatively remote area, it is also an education about the desert; the effects it has on the lives of its habitants. Langewiesche explains how the desert has influenced various cultures as well as the effect it had on him. The author raises issues of history, geography, and culture in a manner which is both entertaining and educational. I only wish the book was longer.
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Summary: An interesting journey into the harshest environment possibl
Review: This book is one which keeps you interested. Starting in Algeria, at the northern edge of the Sahara, the author makes his way through the Sahara. His descriptions of the land and the people are very intriging. I kept thinking what it would take to make a journey like this. At times it is very depressing to consider life in this environment - the author has genuine empathy for the people in the book.
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Summary: Desert Dreams
Review: This book is quite amazing. For those who are drawn to the desert for whatever reasons, may it be its mysteriousness, its myths, or its serenity, will appreciate Langewiesche's narrative. What I love most about this book are the digressions. For example, one chapter will be a journalistic account of trying to get from one city to another, yet the next chapter will be a folktale about why donkeys are so lazy. Langewiesche definitely describes a place that is quite beautiful, yet frightening. Regardless, this book will inspire desert dreams in all readers.
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Summary: Langewiesche's Sahara Is Arid Garden Of Riches
Review: Travel books can be a mixed bag, with the narrators themselves sometimes making for unpleasant company on the armchair journey. That is not a problem with "Sahara Unveiled," where author William Langewiesche submerges himself well beneath the thread of the story. Langewiesche, a reporter for "Atlantic Monthly" best known today for his "American Ground" series of pieces on the aftermath of the World Trade Center's destruction, writes in a lean, spare, slightly alkaline style reminiscent of Hemingway that seems to suit his subject, the world's biggest and perhaps most ferocious desert, quite well. It puts one in mind of William Least Heat Moon's travel writing, notably "Blue Highways," with its cultural detours and picaresque, ever-changing cast of characters. Langewiesche starts off by quickly dispelling any myths his readers might have about the subject of the Sahara: "Do not regret the passing of the camel and the caravan. The Sahara has changed, but it remains a desert without compromise, the world in its extreme." He goes on to demonstrate this by trekking through the desert's endless mass and then west to the Atlantic primarily by taxi, bus, and riverboat. It's not clear to me why Langewiesche was doing this (Least Heat Moon had similarly opaque motives), and the locals have questions, too. During one layover in the Algerian town of M'Zab, what he calls "the diving board for the deep Sahara," there is the following exchange as Langewiesche looks for ground transport farther south: "He said: 'Why don't you fly?' 'Because I want to see the desert up close.' 'Buy a postcard.' 'But I want to feel the desert.' 'It feels bad.' Indeed it does. Sometimes it can even be fatal. Death, human and otherwise, is of no importance to the Sahara, devourer of whole towns and caravans. "The Sahara is not cruel, but it is indifferent," he writes. And it produces a sometimes indifferent people, hard, lean, and fatalistic. People who attack Langewiesche for a lack of political correctness in depicting the Arabs, Berbers, Tauregs, Moors, and others he describes in these pages pay a glowing tribute without knowing it. Langewiesche is one tough writer, unsentimental, not macho but not running for office, either. When he has cause to describe the generosity and kindness of people he meets, he does so. When he runs into less decent folk, he doesn't mince words. He doesn't waste them, either, on emotional outbursts or self-righteousness. As I said at the beginning, he's one author who doesn't get in the way of what he's talking about. His take on the Europeans who come to the Sahara are sharp and cutting. He notes meeting a miserable French couple collecting scorpions and tales of injured superiority in Algeria, a former French colony: "She was a Parisian, and too young to remember the old Algerian war. But she had picked up the old colonial habit of talking about the Algerians as if they were not present or didn't understand French. Similarly, she wore a short skirt and a sleeveless shirt, and through the thin fabric displayed her nipples in disregard of local sentiment. And now she sat drinking French wine. These were not acts of indifference, but aggression. And Algerians understood the difference." The best thing about "Sahara Unveiled" is it never sits still for long. Langewiesche can spend a few pages talking about the fate of a misguided missionary in the 1800s, then bring things back to the present day with an analysis of Taureg separatist violence. He analyzes the different types of dunes formed by Saharan sand, how the desert resembles an ocean, and how it does not. He relates folk tales and the anatomy of a camel. Using plainspoken and approachable prose, he manages to take deep stock of a variety of subjects, make his point, and move on. The last leg of the journey is a quick one, perhaps because Langewiesche was taken ill (from drinking the water, a classic tourist mistake). He doesn't wrap it up as well as he should have, but the rest of the book is too good to begrudge him anything for that. Complaining the author left you wanting more is not much of a complaint, is it? You will enjoy this account of nature at its extreme, and the people who live in it. It is an armchair journey worth taking.
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