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A review by wolvereader
Empires of the Indus: The Story of a River by Alice Albinia
4.0
While this book would more properly be titled "My travels in Pakistan and Afghanistan (even though the Indus doesn´t flow there), and oh yeah, to get a book deal here´s some stuff about empires, and look, I went to Tibet", it was a very informative and relatively entertaining read.
The author´s interests clearly lie with Pakistan and its muslim history, and she spends the vast majority of the book discussing Islam´s historical impact on Pakistan. There is lots of first-person travelogue, and you certainly can´t fault Ms. Albinia for her reckless risk-taking sneaking across borders in the Taliban-run hill regions of Pakistan. Or maybe you can, but it does make for interesting reading.
Still, I was hoping for a lot more information about the Buddhist empires of Tibet and Ladakh, which really got a chapter each. Maybe I´m overestimating the importance of Buddhism on the history of the Indus, but I really did feel that there was far more focus on Pakistan than anything else.
So in a nutshell: lots of great information, entertaining travelogue, and I now know a ton more about Pakistan. My Tibetan-related disappointments aside, this was a very interesting book and I recommend it.
The author´s interests clearly lie with Pakistan and its muslim history, and she spends the vast majority of the book discussing Islam´s historical impact on Pakistan. There is lots of first-person travelogue, and you certainly can´t fault Ms. Albinia for her reckless risk-taking sneaking across borders in the Taliban-run hill regions of Pakistan. Or maybe you can, but it does make for interesting reading.
Still, I was hoping for a lot more information about the Buddhist empires of Tibet and Ladakh, which really got a chapter each. Maybe I´m overestimating the importance of Buddhism on the history of the Indus, but I really did feel that there was far more focus on Pakistan than anything else.
So in a nutshell: lots of great information, entertaining travelogue, and I now know a ton more about Pakistan. My Tibetan-related disappointments aside, this was a very interesting book and I recommend it.