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Summary: Awesome resource!
Review: I found this book to be quite an asset when I was planning a trip to Pakistan last summer. Few books are available here that have information about Pakistan. I took the book on the trip with me, and hesitated to bring it out because I didn't want to risk insulting my hosts. The opposite was true. I had to leave the book in Pakistan because everyone was intrigued and wanted a copy! I had to send more back when I got home! The information is very accurate according to my hosts. Countries are considered dangerous because of conflict, crime, disease etc. Pelton categorizes why a country was listed, and provides the reader with objective information about each location in an entertaining way. I found the information accurate for Brazil and the U.S. too!
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Summary: Ingenious
Review: This is the first book I have been inspired to review. Pelton gives ingenious real travel advice that I have not before found in another guidebook. It's not a traditional guidebook, rather, but an introduction to the world's sketchy places and an appeal to get out there and do things outside your comfort zone. Start living! Outside of catologuing certain places, DP offers specific advice and travel tips for traveling anywhere, really. Also lots of links to other sources. Its a great reference book, highly entertaining, and even inspiring.
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Summary: Interesting book, though not always accurate
Review: It is great that there is a book that describes the more shady parts of the world. I really enjoyed reading this book. However, I have found that the author tends to exagerate some dangers. For example, after reading his piece on Brazil, a reader gets an impression that it is an extremely dangerous place. But I know many people that traveled to Brazil, and found it no more dangerous than most other countries. Also the author has lost some credibility in my eyes after I read his account on Russia. I grew up in Russia and I know it very very well. In several places, the author stated things that were totally inacurate. For example he said that Kalashnikov lived in a Siberian city of Izhevsk. Well, if you take a map of russia, you will find that Izhevsk is not in sibiria, but rather in european part of russia. that's just one example. It may or may not be insignificant but I think one should take authors accounts with a grain of salt
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Summary: Out friggin standing!
Review: They should issue this to every US Marine! Provides fantastic insights into those you will meet, learn their culture, their customs, issues that might be of concern, and then you can... Perfect addition to "Tough tools for a tough world!" A great book. Semper Fi!
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Summary: Where are the women?
Review: A relatively complete review of dangerous places, including maps, factual and basic information, travel tips, history/politics and Pelton's experiences in these places -- some of which are amazing. An eye-opener ... It is very entertaining, and provides wonderful late-night bit-by-bit reading. 5 stars, for the research, the length, the orginality, and the largely correct information. However, not to be recommended, I think, as a very first approach to a country. It is a book for the knowlegeable reader, as it presents one aspect only. My beef. Its a book written by men for men. An example: Pelton gives tips about how to dress -- but not for women! More seriously, some countries don't give visas to women travelling alone, others don't give visas to unmarried women, some countries permit entry but don't allow women to drive, etc. but such basic information is nowhere given. Travelling as a woman (either alone, because some of the places described are really not very dangerous, such as Israel or South Africa, or with others) is in itself a different kind of experience. One is shielded from some dangers, but very vulnerable to others: the upshot, from the 'danger' view point is that some places are horrifyingly dangerous for women, particularly for unaccompanied white women, and others are not dangerous at all, provided one doesn't try to meet warlords, buy guns, seek out sensitive information, impose one's viewpoint or lifestyle, etc. Perhaps someone could write just a short extra chapter? I'd certainly appreciate it.
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Summary: The World's Most Daunting Pizza
Review: In a nutshell, or rather a bombshell, RYP and his savvy crew have given us an updated recipe from the Hot Kitchen...
We start off with a Tandoori dough, rolled from the rough and tumble boarder between Pakistan and Afghanistan, steeped to tangy perfection in the Khyber Pass, and sprinkled with poppy seeds. Be sure to roll the base in baking powder from Colombia. The tomato sauce actually consists of some imitation tomato found on the ground around Gronzy- poor Howling Wolf (or poor Ruskies?). Some tender meat chunks from outlying Algiers are tossed on top, along with some funky American cheeze- which is actually Kareoke music from Zamboanga. For herbs and spices there is qhat from Mog, bugs from Bujumbura, and ganga from Liberia. The dish is placed in the oven around Ereteria, and cooked at great heat, except when its raining. Share it with your best buds from the GIA, PKK, CIA, even the OAS. Its a sure hit. The World's Most Daunting Pizza, or simply DP for Daunting Pizza. The recipe is outlined in this book. Bon appetit! And for all you serious international relations types- this should prove filling enough.
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Summary: GREAT BOOK, FACTUAL AND COMPLETE!
Review: In light of the terrorist attacks in the U.S., one is beginning to feel it is not safe to travel in any country of the world these days....and you may be right! This is certainly not a book one is going to sit down and read from cover to cover in an evening; it is very lengthy, but it is also very thorough. From the risk of kidnapping and murder to terrorism and war, the book tells which countries are at greatest risk. This book is a terrific guide for business travellers, vacation travellers and those who travel simply in search of abandoned risk and wild adventure. Personally, I am beginning to feel twice as safe being an "armchair traveller." No country can guarantee one's safety, even in one's own home, but there is something about the comfort of one's home that is, at least on the surface, less ominous and threatening than the outside world. That is not to say, we should all become hermits, but Pelton's guide will certainly allow one to be aware of the pending risks when travelling in foreign countries. Travelling in one's own country is something else, and the terrible tragedy at the World Trade Centers has made us all too aware that in reality - no place is completely safe, even our own country. I did enjoy the reading this guide and found it to be extremely informative and factual. The reader can learn a lot and it certainly sharpens one's awareness of existing conditions in the world.
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Summary: Not a joking matter
Review: Obviously a lot of work went into the making of this book, however the author is trying to double as a comedian and it takes away from the intent. I found myself many times asking "was he kidding about this or serious." His comic attempts were way overboard, otherwise, excellent research.
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Summary: Real World In Your Face--What CIA & Media Don't Report
Review: I've heard Robert Young Pelton speak, and he is, if anything, even more thoughtful and provocative in person. He has written an extraordinary book that ordinary people will take to be a sensationalist travel guide, while real experts scrutinize every page for the hard truths about the real world that neither the CIA nor the media report. Unlike clandestine case officers and normal foreign service officers, all of them confined to capital cities and/or relying on third party reporting, Robert Young Pelton actually goes to the scene of the fighting, the scene of the butchery, the scene of the grand thefts, and unlike all these so-called authoritative sources, he actually has had eyeballs on the targets and boots in the mud. I have learned two important lessons from this book, and from its author Robert Young Pelton: First, trust no source that has not actually been there. He is not the first to point out that most journalists are "hotel warriors", but his veracity, courage, and insights provide compelling evidence of what journalism could be if it were done properly. Government sources are even worse--it was not until I heard him speak candidly about certain situations that I realized that most of our Embassy reporting--both secret and open--is largely worthless because it is third hand, not direct. Second, I have learned from this book and the author that sometimes the most important reason for visiting a war zone is to learn about what is NOT happening. His accounts of Chechnya, and his personal first-hand testimony that the Russians were terrorizing their Muslims in the *absence* of any uprising or provocation, are very disturbing. His books offers other accounts of internal terrorism that are being officially ignored by the U.S. Government, and I am most impressed by the value of his work as an alternative source of "national intelligence" and "ground truth". There are a number of very important works now available to the public on the major threats to any country's national security, and most of them are as unconventional as this one--Laurie Garrett on public health, Marq de Villiers on Water, Joe Thorton on chlorine-based industry and the environment--and some, like Robert D. Kaplan's books on his personal travels, are moving and inspiring reflections on reality as few in the Western world could understand it--but Robert Young Pelton is in my own mind the most structured, the most competent, the most truthful, and hence the most valuable reporter of fact on the world's most dangerous places. What most readers may not realize until they read this book is that one does not have to travel to these places to be threatened by them--what is happening there today, and what the U.S. government does or does not do about developments in these places, today, will haunt this generation and many generations to follow. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who cares to contemplate the real world right now.
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Summary: Different Kind of Review
Review: It's really a book that change's one's perspective on the world, and life itself. It made me value human life so much more. Pictures of children in war or harvesting drugs are among the most moving things.
The authors of this book are a wonderfully strange breed of people. They put their lives at risk for what - money?... It has to be a personal passion for something. Truth? Knowledge? Or bringing truth to others? Whichever, the world would be a darker place if they chose not to share this information with us all. They deserve more than our small compliments.
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