Rating: 
Summary: fascinating and informative
Review: This book should be required reading for anyone who has ever thought of spending time in the Middle East or has wondered what life is really like there. With every anecdote, Horowitz brings to life the people and culture of each of the countries he visits. He made even Sudan sound like an interesting place to go. (Of course, the book was written a number of years ago before things became so terrible there.) Travel writing is usually too precious or too condescending for me. Baghdad Without a Map is one of the few exceptions.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting and relevant for today
Review: This is a very useful book to understand the societies and politics of that complex region called the Middle East. Far from academic tones, but well informed and with background information, the book tells the travels of journalist Tony Horwitz, a Jewish-American who travels in Yemen, Egypt, Irak, Iran, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates and Lybia. Horwitz not just interviews politicians and professors, but mainly the ordinary man in the street. This is good because it gives the reports a local, personal and real flavor. Horwitz is sympathetic to its common subjects and very acid about the big shots, something welcome by the reader, at least this one.I think it is very unfair to portrait this book as "funny", juts as the cover of my copy does. It is not funny at all nor does it pretend to be, notwithstanding the author's sense of humor. Most of the things he narrates -even with the aforementioned sense of humor- are pretty horrible and spooky. Far from a comic book, Horwitz has delivered a serious -not solemn- portrait of the horrors of living in those areas of the world, ruled by lunatic and murderous dictators, by sanguinary clowns, as well as by fear, misery, poverty and violence. Just as in every corner of the world, there are good and bad people, but somehow what we are witnesses to is the failure of a culture, a failure to produce minimally decent, free and happy societies. Yemen is a God-forsaken place of chaos and stoned people; the Persian Gulf is a cosmopolitan smuggling area -a very beautiful chapter-; Cairo is poverty, disorder and mutltitudes; Baghdad is simply the worst place on Earth -a specially relevant chapter for what is going on today and a reminder of the suffering and sheer misery imposed by a crazy killer-; Isreal doesn't sound too good; Libya is boring; Sudan is hell; Beirut not better to get close to, at least in those days; and Tehran is contradictory. Inevitably, the portrait of these places is negative, even as Horwitz, as said above, is a sympathetic and unprejudiced man. It is simply the truth that these countries ahve been unable to be livable, as the urge of so many to flee them attests. This is a good moment to read or reread this book: it shows light on the region.
Rating:
Summary: Third World without Fear
Review: This is no half-baked travelogue about Middle Eastern countries, but an explosive, stumble-into-whatever-the-day-may-bring approach to experiencing the world of Arab peoples. It detonated every pre-conceived idea I had about Egypt and the other countries that have been so thoughtfully sanitized by Hollywood. I saw how far the long-arm of the United States of America reaches as Horwitz reports on a corrupt but highly benevolent U.S.charity food trader running a truck operation to starving people in Sudan. I was amazed at the sheer guts Horowitz had while plodding into volatile situations like the boat ride into Beirut. And I cancelled any romantic notions (and airline tickets) I held about the "Holy Land" being a modern day "Promised Land" after he mentions folks being strip-searched while passing over the Jordan River border. The only monotony evident in the book is the waiting that Horwitz endures, while unorganized and propaganda embellishing/ embracing Libyan fanatics drum up rediculous scenarios for Western journalists. It did take endurance to restructure in my mind, the backward and frivolous activities that the Arab world displayed to the keen, watchful eye of a happy-go-lucky reporter. Horwitz takes the reader along on his journey, and if you open your eyes and sample the smells of the Middle East, you, too can proclaim, "I LOVE the smell of sewage in the morning!" "Baghdad Without a Map" smells like...a winner.
Rating:
Summary: A View From The Streets of the Middle-East
Review: This is perhaps the funniest travelogue since S.J. Perelman was writing. Perelman, however, populated his travel pieces with fictitious characters and situations, whereas Horwitz needs not invent a thing. From his perspective, the variety of people, climates, and pressures in the middle-east are themselves a rich vein of humor and fascination. Despite the laughter, this is also a serious recording of Horwitz's experience travelling across arabia: he views bodies in the Iraq-Iran war and explores Orwellian Baghdad; he crosses from Jordan to Israel; he attends what passes as a press conference with Qaddafi in Libya; he visits a weapons merchant in Yemen and haggles; and he spends time in the astonishing Khartoum, though while he's there what he thinks about mainly is how to get out of there. (His visit to the Khartoum zoo is one of the funniest episodes in the book.) This is highly recommended for its entertainment value and cultural interest. It is not a history or an analysis of the middle-east.
Rating:
Summary: A View From The Streets of the Middle-East
Review: This is perhaps the funniest travelogue since S.J. Perelman was writing. Perelman, however, populated his travel pieces with fictitious characters and situations, whereas Horwitz needs not invent a thing. From his perspective, the variety of people, climates, and pressures in the middle-east are themselves a rich vein of humor and fascination. Despite the laughter, this is also a serious recording of Horwitz's experience travelling across arabia: he views bodies in the Iraq-Iran war and explores Orwellian Baghdad; he crosses from Jordan to Israel; he attends what passes as a press conference with Qaddafi in Libya; he visits a weapons merchant in Yemen and haggles; and he spends time in the astonishing Khartoum, though while he's there what he thinks about mainly is how to get out of there. (His visit to the Khartoum zoo is one of the funniest episodes in the book.) This is highly recommended for its entertainment value and cultural interest. It is not a history or an analysis of the middle-east.
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious & serious glimpes of Middle East rarely seen!
Review: This is the book of a Jewish-American journalist chronicling his travels and work throughout the Middle East for several years. He travels as far west and south as southern Sudan, and as far east as Iran. The book is crammed full of hilarious quotes by Middle Easterners and Horowitz himself. In his travels Horowitz was told things like "No one makes love to Iraq," and a man at Khomeini's funeral tells him of his desire to visit Disneyland and then resumes a loud chant of "Death to America." The chapter on Yemen (a country whose culture and habits are virtually unknown to westerners) is absolutely hilarious. Horowitz's recollections of being blitzed on Qat (a green leafy intoxicant that is chewed) are some of the funniest stories I've ever read. Although disturbing, his adventures in a Yemeni weapons market is equally hilarious. Horowitz has a great sense of humour...and this humour is a tool that must've prevented Horowitz's insanity when dealing with things like lepers in Sudan, gory battlefields during the Iran-Iraq war, enduring a night of shelling in Lebanon or on a lighter note...putting up with EgyptAir's "guaranteed waiting list" plane tickets (where you and a thousand other people hold tickets to get on a 250 seat plane!) This is not a history book although he includes some history. Its a nice journey of one western man's observations in the Middle East. The surprising thing for me was that despite his being Jewish, he seemed to dislike Israel more than anywhere else he went. Horowitz is a good journalist and good writer. He knows that perfect combination of things to talk about. Things to make you sad, things to make you laugh, things that scare & depress you. He knows when to tell it like it is, when its okay to report on interesting asides, and when its best to abandon ship (although it took him a long time to learn the lesson of when to leave.) The book was a fun read, and you can read it fast since most of the time its just observation and the humorous interpretations of a man outside of his culture and "comfort zone." You will find yourself laughing out loud at times. If you have even the slightest desire to travel to the Middle East (which you probably would if this book interests you), then it will make you want to go even more!
Rating:
Summary: Travel Guide to War Zones
Review: This is the second time I will be purchasing Baghdad Without a Map to give as a gift. I have also loaned my copy to several friends, who all loved it. The book is best categorized as travel writing of the personal journal variety. Horwitz fearlessly puts himself in a variety of dangerous, humorous or interesting situations in places around the Middle East. But it goes beyond some travel journals in its insight into the societies he visits, and the people he meets. It is the sort of personal insight that travelers hope to discover on their travels. The sections on Iran were a revelation to me. Originally written before the Gulf War, it has a final chapter describing his return after the war. Now the Middle East is in the news again, and although Horwitz didn't travel to Afghanistan, his stories are timely once again. Not to mention that the book is a terrific read. Buy it for yourself or as a gift.
Rating:
Summary: A delightful travelogue
Review: This was a tough book to put down. 'Baghdad Without Maps' works on many different levels: The author shares with us something of his personal life and the development of his career, in a humorously self-deprecating tone. We learn something of the pack-mentality of war zone journalists, and we learn something of the countries he visits, with the occasional crash-course on a nation's history or political system. All too often with this type of book, I find myself skipping over the boring historical stuff, but here, his writing style is so entertaining, I didn't want to miss a single sentence. Where Horwitz really shines is his man-on-the-street interviews. He has a knack for recording some real gems of dialogue, such as the Iranian who was chanting 'Death to America,' and then stopped to ask Horwitz for advice on visiting Disneyland. Some might see his approach to the Middle East as negative, but after all, he's a journalist who chases war, so the negative tone isn't very surprising. In most of the countries he visits, Horwitz introduces us to local people that are almost always portrayed in the most sympathetic of tones. The country that comes across worst in this book is Israel, notwithstanding that Horwitz himself is Jewish. Chapters cover Yemen, the UAE, Egypt, Iraq (he was there during the war with Iran as well the Gulf War), Iran (for Khomeini's funeral), Jordan, Israel, Sudan, and Lebanon. But the most memorable chapter of all is his brief visit to Libya. The only thing missing from this book is maps--only one for the entire book, which is not enough.
Rating:
Summary: One of my All-Time Favorites
Review: Tony Horwitz manages to do something many writers strive to do and almost none succeed at: Telling a farcical tale of his travel experiences and not only making it both believeable and hilarious, but doing so in such a way that you feel you have been there yourself. This is one of the few books I reread on a regular basis. You can open it to any page in the middle, start reading, and truly enjoy it. Each Middle Eastern country is dealt with differently, presenting different challanges and adventures, from the fundamentalist Iran to the poverty of Sudan to the totalitarian Iraq to the apathetic Yemen. He brings us an entertaining view of the many differences in a world we have previously thought to be homogenous. A must read!
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable..........
Review: Tony Horwitz, the author, spent some time in the Mideast as a freelance journalist. Traveling throughout the region in search of stories he might sell to newspapers stateside, he recorded his experiences and presents them here in book form. It is a quick, entertaining read. Horwitz exposes the many ironies of life one might find in a region steeped in religious fundamentalism. His knack for discovering odd and oddly endearing characters in each country he visits adds charm and humor while permitting the reader as close a look into the mideastern mind as they are apt to find. It's a wondrous place and particularly confusing, but Horwitz finds the lighter side of a region controlled by autocrats, despots, kings, and imams, and the people who patiently abide the poverty and lack of personal freedom such governments often create. If you enjoy travel writing and are interested in the mideast, take a couple of hours and read this book. You'll enjoy it. I know I did.
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