South America Books

Again the Ruc Sack reader team comes up with another quality guide to a magnificent area of the world. For anyone planning to visit the Inca Trails then this guide should be your first purchase. It contains all you need to know about preparing for the trail, getting there, any equipment needed, recommended tour operators, detailed maps, useful websites plus day-by-day information on the 3 main routes (short, medium and long). In short, an essential guide to read when looking for information on the Inca Trails.

Explore the Inca Trail is a guide detailing two interconnected long distance walking trails (the Mollepata Trail and the Classic Trail) leading to Machu Picchu. This guide is set out so that walkers may join these trails at various stops along the usual train route. This aspect of the book enables participants to walk the trail and still adhere to their time and ability requirements.

The Inca Civilization was an advanced civilization that thrived in what is now modern Peru until it was conquered by the Spaniards in the late 1500s. This amazing civilization was responsible for some of the most amazing sculptures, textiles, metalwork, and architecture that the world has ever seen.

Machu Picchu is the remnants of a breathtaking Inca site hidden in the Andean Mountains. This former royal estate contains over 200 residences, shops, and temples and probably housed between 750 and 1250 people. These buildings feature unique trapezoidal windows and earthquake proof stone building foundations.

The Mollepata Trail leads from Mollepata to Wayllabamba following the existing Inca trail. This trail features three access points along the main road to Wayllabamba. If this trail is completed as a whole, the journey takes the walker three days. Highlights along this trail include gorgeous mountain views and ample wildlife.

The Classic Trails leads from Chilca through Wayllabamba to Machu Picchu. Those participants that walk the Mollepata Trail will connect with the Classic Trail at Wayllabamba. The Classic Trial contains three access points along the train route. This journey takes the walker three or four days depending upon his or her access point. The Classic Trial features many archaeological sites including the Sayaqmarka ruins, the Runkuraqay ruins, the Winaywayna ruins, and the remnants of Machi Picchu.

For those wanting a short walk, there is a Short Trail leading from Chachabamba to Machu Picchu. This journey takes about 4-6 hours to traverse.

Explore the Inca Trail outlines not only the background of Inca and the various stops along the various parts of the walking trails (including full color maps) but also details various long walking and high altitude hiking fundamentals. These details include what types of equipment the participant should bring to complete the walk and how long the various sections of the journey will take. There are also helpful tips especially for novices about daily mileage, feet, weight, and the right gear.

EXPLORE THE INCA TRAIL is an experience in itself. This is a spiral bound book with foldout maps and charts, stunning photography, medical advice, altitude profiles, and even a bit of Inca history. I'm not sure if I will ever make it to Machu Picchu, but Rucksack Readers' EXPLORE THE INCA TRAIL is certainly the next best thing. (Did you know that no one really knows the true name of these ruins? "Machu Picchu" is Quechua for "old peak." Did you know that Quechua is spoken by over 10 million Peruvians, making it the largest living indigenous language in the Americas? I didn't know this until I read it in EXPLORE THE INCA TRAIL.) I enjoyed this book so much that I took it to work with me one day and showed it to a co-worker who is from Peru. He said this book made him homesick. Eventually, EXPLORE THE INCA TRAIL even made it into my boss's hands, who borrowed it overnight. This was one well-loved, popular book that made for a great conversation piece!

As I hint at in the beginning of this review, what I found most interesting about EXPLORE THE INCA TRAIL is the respect it pays to the indigenous group who still speaks the official Incan language of Quechua. I have always been fascinated by the topic of South America's relationship with its indigenous cultures and how these cultures fused with the Hispanic culture imposed from Spain. My main focus of study in this theme has been the life of Eva Peron ("Evita"), the former first lady of Argentina. Some scholars say that one reason Evita was so popular with Argentina's poor masses was because she had a degree of indigenous Argentine blood. Robert D. Crassweller writes in PERON AND THE ENIGMAS OF ARGENTINA that Evita's brief career was so successful because "she was so profoundly of the ethos.... Like Peron, she was wholly indigenous in origin and formation [page 248]." EXPLORE THE INCA TRAIL describes the fall of the Inca Empire, and describes how the Inca king Atahualpa was betrayed and deceived by the Spaniards. I learned in this book that Atahualpa was murdered on July 26, 1533; eerily, Eva Peron would die of cancer exactly 419 years later, on July 26, 1952. After sharing this bit of information with my co-worker from Peru, I learned something more unusual: he celebrates his birthday on July 26th.

Needless to say, I highly recommend EXPLORE THE INCA TRAIL.

When I was young, I wanted to do all sorts of mad things - trek across the Sahara desert, climb in the Himalayas, go gliding, and so on - and if I'd heard of the Inca Trail at that time, happily hike along it. Now I am older and wiser, and realise that I shall never be able to do any of this. And I am older and wiser enough to realise that anybody else who tries to do this kind of thing is fairly foolish.

A couple of years ago, my wife and I, taking a grand holiday from Britain, spent part of the time - ten days - in the Inca peaks of Peru. Each day this involved ridiculously strenuous activities - spending hours in the hot sun, climbing hundreds of metres almost vertically along nearly invisible goat tracks, and realising how foolish we were by seeing nobody but our guide the whole time. And then we would burst up into some splendid Inca edifice, towering above the terraces - and find that we were not alone: in every Inca ruin are two or three urchins running gaily around in the thin atmosphere, never panting at all, and taking time off only to try to sell us cold drinks and souvenirs.

We learned our lesson. We made our pilgrimage to Machu Picchu the easy way: first on the tourist train (yes, the one with a necessary oxygen supply by each seat) and then on the bus up the hair pin hillside to the settlement itself. And there, what did we find? Two or three dozen tourists scrambling gaily around in the thin atmosphere while wearing great heavy kit bags, never panting at all, and looking far fresher than us, although they had arrived along the Inca trail. Mad, all mad - and some of them were older than us!

Books like this are absolutely wonderful for armchair trail-blazers like me. On the first level, I am able to see what I missed. (Actually all I missed was the aching joints; we were able to enjoy pretty well all the rest - "there is nowhere on earth where you will experience such a gratifying combination of stunning scenery, physical challenge and spectacular plant life... arguably the most photogenic ruins on the planet.") On a higher level, an hour or two with this book would allow me to be able to sparkle at any dinner party by describing my adventures on the Inca trail. Higher still, with little more study, I am sure I could persuade a real Inca trail hiker that I had followed any of the three main walking routes to those splendid ruins.

All that's because this is no mere guide book: sure, it provides plenty of well written text and many superb illustrations (frightening mountain scenes, many Inca structures, and loads of wildlife - from condors and guanacos to marvellous tiny plants) to describe so much of that wonderful Andean wilderness. But it does a great deal more: here you find full details of every kilometre of each of those three routes, a wealth of health and safety information, even Spanish and local vocabulary. Arguably this is an encouraging book: "This stiff climb will provide the most serious test of your fitness and acclimatisation so far." "Just plod on steadily and you will make good progress." "The campsite here tends to be busy, and once it had a bad reputation for theft."
Without doubt, you have to be mad to set out on such walks as these - but it would be truly insane to do them without this excellent book in your bag.

Pablo Neruda writes in a style that is so accessible and yet so elegant..
Extravagaria is the first of his books of poems that I have read (having only read some selected poems of his before) - to read the poems as they were meant to be read in this collection is a delight.. I only wish I could read them in Spanish - I guess I will have to hit the books...

A wonderful collection of Naruda's work. There is a sense of settling down in these collection of his work that is really quite beautiful. I also find Alastair Reid's translation more beautiful than others I've seen. The original spanish text on the opposite page is also nice and handy to have.

One of the most interesting books I have ever read. It taught me that there's poetry in every movement we make and every moment we live.

Pablo touched me as no poet that I have read in the last 25 years. His lines particularly sees the world with wisened eyes, writen in his later days. He embraces his past occationally crushing it with bittersweet energy. At the same time he looks forward to rest and what's next. He never stopped Becoming, as Sarte would say, through the years. "Her" declares the need and joy of loving and working life together with his spouse. "Larnyx" chills with news from the doctor that all of humanity dreads.

The spanish on the facing page lets one glimpse at hidden meanings, reaching back for our Spanish 101 or Elementary Latin, a treat. If you buy one poetry book this year, this should be the one. If you are silver haired, as I, then this is the poetry of the decade for you.

The Lonely Planet guidebook series is known for combining travel tips with cultural and historical education, and the Falkland Islands guide is no exception. The detail of this book is outstanding, and the stories it describes are very interesting as well - these little islands have played a larger role in world affairs than the uninformed would ever expect.

If you are buying this in conjunction with the Antarctica book, please note that this book is much smaller - but given the relative size of each landmass, the difference makes sense.

We are planning a trip to the Falklands soon, and I have searched every available publication for information. Suffice to say, such information is in short supply. I was ecstatic when I found this book. If you are planning a trip to the Falklands and/or South Georgia, this is the only book you need. Its information is both varied and comprehensive. Of special interest to us was the section detailing every location to view each type of penguin found in the Falklands.

An interesting, if brief, guided tour of what has to be one of the most remote tourist destinations on the planet. The Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas)are a British Colony in the South Atlantic, a few hundred miles off the South American coast, that are also claimed by Argentina---in 1982 the two countries fought a war over the islands. Points of interest are noted, and an overview of the land, the people (population only 2500, with about 80% living in the capital city of Port Stanley), the history, and the wildlife is provided. Included are about 30 pages on South Georgia, a remarkably picturesque, but largely uninhabited island even further out in the Atlantic. My only complaint was the lack of photographs of the Falkland countryside. It would have been nice to get a feel for the terrain---m.p.

I'm a fan of the Lonely Planet (LP) series, both for armchair travel and for actual travel. This is one of the most obscure destinations covered by LP, and has the added distinction of being written by LP founder Tony Wheeler. However, it is a mystery to me why a successful entrepreneur would want to go back to the drudgery of collecting information for this book.

These 200 pages cover the Falklands in infinite detail. Every remote sheep farm that has a room for rent is described in detail, most of which are accessible only by non-scheduled plane. Keep in mind that the Falklands have only 3500 people, and only one place that could be described as a town or village, which means that this guide has a greater pages-per-capita ratio than any other LP guide (except perhaps Antarctica). There is a large emphasis on wildlife, with 17 pages describing varieties of birds. Also, 18 pages are dedicated to the even more remote South Georgia Island (pop. 10), accessible only by ship. As in all LP guides, there is background on the history and economy, excellent maps, and (in these more recent guides) many color photos.

I became aware of this book through an article Hemingway wrote about books he would like to read twice. Well I can say that this book is best read in the winter, for it will melt the snow in puddles around your shoe, and warm your heart and soul at the same time. So make haste and buy it now, while the cold winds still blow.

The Argentine pampas was a land of freedom and excitement: one literary figurehead W.H. Hudson describes in his memoir FAR AWAY & LONG AGO: A CHILDHOOD IN ARGENTINA. Descriptions of natural history and wildlife abound - and also of politics and interpersonal relationships of the times. You'd think FAR AWAY & LONG AGO would give insights into Hudson's childhood and life - and it does - but more importantly it recreates the history, culture and geography of Argentina in a way few travel books accomplish.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

As we continue to pave over the beauties of our world and turn them into concrete wastelands, it is good to think back what life was like 150 years ago before we began the process of destruction in earnest.

W. H. Hudson, the naturalist, is revered in Argentina, where they refer to him as Guillermo Enrique Hudson and name streets and towns after him. In simple and stately prose, he writes about his boyhood as one of several sons in an English family that ran an estancia on the Pampas. Despite several failed attempts to school him, he managed to pick up one of the best educations available: by using his eyes and ears to study nature. His skill in language, which is considerable, came from reading his father's books on his own.

Whether writing about ombu trees, plovers, snakes, lightning storms, rheas (Argentinian ostriches), or his neighboring ranchers, Hudson brought a whole world to life with this book.

Hudson published FAR AWAY AND LONG AGO in 1917 while he was living in England -- around the same time that a Frenchman named Marcel Proust was following where that elusive taste of madeleines led him in REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST, and around the same time that World War I was destroying a whole way of life. As he writes in the book:

"It is difficult, impossible I am told, for any one to recall his boyhood exactly as it was. It could not have been what it seems to the adult mind, since we cannot escape from what we are, however great our detachment may be; and in going back we must take our present selves with us: the mind has taken a different colour, and this is thrown back upon our past. The poet has reversed the order of things when he tells us that we come trailing clouds of glory, which melt away and are lost as we proceed on our journey. The truth is that unless we belong to the order of those who crystallize or lose their souls on their passage, the clouds gather about us as we proceed, and as cloud-compellers we travel on to the very end."

FAR AWAY AND LONG AGO is perhaps one of the greatest autobiographies ever written. Although I finished reading it several days ago, I am still feeling its afterglow and get this itch to re-read passages from it. This is, indeed, a book that will withstand several readings.

I could never make it through Hudson's fantasy __Green Mansions__, but __Far Away and Long Ago__ is another book altogether. Written when Hudson was approaching eighty, more than forty years after he had left Argentina for good, it's filled with the kind of longing you might expect. And even though he's a witness to the mid-nineteenth civil wars in Argentina or, more incredibly still, listens to travelers reciting poems by the eighteenth-century Spaniard Menéndez Valdés, Hudson seems modern; he makes other times, other places, far away and long ago, as he calls them, seem incredibly near.

Hudson's excellent short story "El Ombú" is also well worth seeking out. And, finally, while it's true Hudson left Argentina for England, the US also has some claim to him; it was from New England, after all, that, shortly before his birth, his American family left for Argentina. Just thought I'd make that clear, since people are always calling him "Anglo-Argentine".

In this firsthand account, Bolivian tin miner and revolutionary militant Rodolfo Saldan~a explains how the
guerilla lead by Che Guevara - which Saldan~a helped lead the support network for --was rooted in the
revolutionary upsurge of workers' , students' and farmers' struggles in the mid-late '60s in Bolivia and the
mass movements against dictatorship and Yanqui Imperial domination in the neighboring countries of Peru
and Argentina . As he explains from first-hand experience, Che's efforts were not isolated, driven by
desire for martyrdom, or sabotaged by Fidel Castro, as so many of Che's ' biographers' have claimed.
Excellent preface and introduction by Cuban General Harry Villegas and Pathfinder Press' Mary-Alice
Waters place the lessons of Che's final efforts in the context of the struggles of workers, farmers and youth
of today against capitalism and the Yanqui Empire.

Did the capture and execution of Che Guevarra prove that the military actions he led in Bolivia in 1966-67 were doomed to failure?

This interview with Bolivian participant Rodolfo Saldaña reveals the opposite. His captivating description of how fertile the ground was in Bolivia and throughout South America for revolution includes the mass support and financial aid given to the guerrillas by tin miners, peasants, and students. He explains how the U.S. backed the military junta, and the real reasons for the defeat.

Saldana's fits Che Guevara guerrilla struggle in Bolivia oin 1966 and 1967 into the context of workers struggles that had been shaking that country since the 1940s. He shows how Bolivian revolutionists, workers, students, and peasants welcomed Che's struggle and how the class struggle in that country advanced by Che's struggle. At the country's biggest tin mines, entire unions pledged one day's salary to support Che. Saldana, a founder and leader of the Bolivian Communist Party until he broke with them to work with Che's guerrilla, shows how the Bolivian CP sabotaged Che's struggle. With economic and social conditions in Bolivia and other parts of Latin America much worse than they were in the 1960s, this book should be read as a manual for future upsurges of struggle by workers and peasants in Bolivia and throughout the Americas.

Kudos to the Pathfinder editors for finding Saldaña and recording his story before he died. Saldaña describes the day-to-day life of revolutionary organizers among workers and peasants in Bolivia in the early 1960s. The book gave me a deeper appreciation for the revolutionary possibilities that existed in Bolivia, which in turn led to Che opening the guerrilla front there in 1966.

I grew up in So. California, so I've been fishing and diving the Pacific for many years. Now I live in Mexico and fish/dive the Gulf of California. I have never found a better field guide for these waters. I keep a copy on my boat and use it constantly.

The full-color illustrations are excellent and the descriptions are precise and accurate. It is laid out logically and is very easy to use. I've settled many arguments and won many bets on the docks with this book.

As a volunteer for the new Long Beach (CA) Aquarium of the Pacific, I needed to quickly learn about fishes of the Pacific coast and how to identify them. This book exactly suits my needs. It is interesting and informative, without being too technical. The color illustrations are beautiful. This is the perfect book for anyone who wants to learn more about Pacific coast fishes.

Fishes of the Pacific Coast is an excellent reference guide with beautiful full color illustrations of approximately 450 fish. I truly appreciated the inclusion of the fish of the upper Sea of Cortez. Small ecological and historical blurbs are fascinating. The handbook size makes it a must have on your diving or fishing boat.

I do a lot of fishing and own quite a few books on fish. I also keep a life-time fish list, a list of every species of fish I have ever caught that I was able to correctly ID. I have found Fishes of the Pacific Coast by Gar Goodson in particular to be very useful for ID purposes, but I also find it to be very good writing, highly interesting, and full of information that most other fish ID books usually lack. For example, he tells you here if a fish is considered good eating, or not. He tells you where they are found, in how deep of water, locals, tidbits of history about the fish, and also what they eat.
I recently bought two new books on fish, one about fish of the Gulf of Mexico and another on fish of the Atlantic Ocean and looking them over I kept finding things missing; I suddenly realized how much better this book of Goodson's is.
The many illustrations by the artist Phillip J. Weisgerber are all excellent and every single one of them is in color. I am a writer myself, author of some 5 published books now,... and I appreciate books that are put together with care, appreciate writing that is fun and interesting and highly informative. Fishes of the Pacific Coast is an inexpensive book and a darn good one. If you fish in the Pacific you'll want to own this book and will find that having it, and bringing it along on fishing trips will add a great deal to your pleasure. Also, I would certainly recommend this book as a present for anyone who is interested in nature,in fish, in fishing. A marvelous book and one of my favorites for sure!

1. Much more detailed than Lonely Planet.
2. Reliable
3.Saved me a lot

The most experienced, complete, objective, relevant, orderly, up-to-date guide book on South America now also has the clearest maps.

We spent 2 and half months in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Peru. You begin to trust it as you go along and towards the end of our trip we swore by it and started helping other travellers with suggestions from the book.You don't have to think twice when a place is recommended.

The best part of the book is the way is structured. Once you get a feel for it you will love it.

You might need a detailed guide for larger cities like Buenos Aires and Rio.

Hope this helps.

I have been travelling regularly to South America since 1994, and from 1996 to 1997 I lived in Lima, Peru. Of all the travel guides I've used over the years, this one beyond any doubt is the most comprehesive single volume of all countries in South America.

I have found the information to be highly reliable. Restaurants and hotels are categorized into the correct price categories, addresses and phone numbers are as up-to-date as can reasonably be expected, and other important information such as bus route numbers, time tables, museum and park hours, holidays, etc. are generally accurate.

The book also does a good job in its descriptions of the sections of cities as well as highlighting the most popular and the off-the-beaten path destinations within the various regions of each country. The maps provided are also very nicely displayed.

If you are planning a trip to South America, particularly if you plan to visit more than one country, use this guide to organize your itinerary, and then bring it with you to make your trip more enjoyable.

Forgotten Confederates: An Anthology About Black Southerners is an informative text that introduces the reader to an ignored, overlooked, and often times denied chapter in the history of the War Between the States. The editors have compiled a collection of modern essays, period news articles, obituaries, personal recollections, and Confederate records that provide readers an opportunity to either educate themselves or to pursue further exploration of the role that African Americans played in the Confederacy. The anthology includes sections that 1) deal primarily with the actual historical events, 2) sociological and anthropological studies concerning the social structure when the conflict occurred (providing the reader with a basic understanding of the times that purely historical texts often lack), and 3) personal remembrances that give the reader insight into the actual thoughts of those African Americans who worked with or for the Confederacy. The book is imminently readable and its format permits the reader to continue through the text as written at his leisure or to concentrate upon records, historical texts, or contemporary musings if he wishes. Two aspects of the work created a great impression upon this reviewer. The first aspect is the objectivity of the text. While the potential for a biased point of view is great in subject matter of this sort, the editors did an excellent job of presenting all aspects of African-American Southern involvement in the conflict. The records that were presented reflected the nature of the contributions of both slaves and freemen and numerous references were made to individuals who served in both sides of the conflict. Additionally, there were no obvious attempts at apologia for the reasons behind African-American participation in the Confederacy. The editors again were objective in their selection of source materials and where conclusions are drawn by either contributors, past historians, or participants; the editors let those conclusions stand. Moreover, in records or lengthy discourses that required editing, the editors summarised the passages without loss of factual information. Secondly, an extensive reference is made available to the reader who chooses to pursue additional information on the topic. This resource includes a description and page number of each particular relevant reference, for which this reviewer was particular grateful. This reviewer highly recommends Forgotten Confederates to any student of the Civil War, students of sociology or African American studies, or any reader with an interest in the more obscure details of the American Civil War as an excellent introduction to the role that African Americans played in the Confederate States.

I had no idea so many black soldiers fought for the South.Some were really body servants, others were quartermasters and cooks and others were flat out real soldiers. This is a piece of history that has been totally left out of the history books. This is the only book of it's kind that I know of so if you are a black or Civil War history buff you must add this one to your collection.

Mr. Barrow has written a most extraordinary book on some of the most noble, yet sadly forgotten, defenders of the Confederacy - the Black Confederates. He offers a quite insightful look of their service throughout the War For Southern Independence. Some of the personal accounts of these brave men of colour are wonderful, leaving us to question the bigotry of those who use revisionist tactics in portraying the War For Southern Independence. I believe the unfortunate & temporarily successful block of the racist organisation NAACP against a proposed monument in the Commonwealth of Virginia, that was to have been erected to the memory of the thousands upon thousand of blacks who wore the grey & butternut & bore the Saint Andrew's Cross of the Southern Confederacy, is such an example.

The common conception of black Southerners in the Civil War has described a people unified by their opposition to the Confederacy and resisting the Southern war effort, either passively and actively.
This view can only be maintained by ignoring a mass of research material that strongly suggests that black opinion, like other opinion, was represented across the spectrum, and was strongly influenced by sectional, local, and family loyalties which have largely disappeared in the modern world, but which were of paramount importance in the nineteenth century. Many blacks, free and slave, in fact, considered themselves Southerners first and blacks second, and served the Southern cause enthusiastically.
This unconventional view is supported here by a wealth of clippings, rosters, memoirs, photos, archival records, and other data to convincingly demonstrate that the matter is more complex than the simplifiers of history would have it, and to show that the actual record of the black Southerner leaves no firm ground for those who would cite his experiences for modern political purposes.
(The "score" rating is an unfortunately ineradicable feature of the page. This reviewer does not "score" books.)

Now in a newly revised edition, From Plassey To Pakistan: The Family History Of Iskander Mirza The First President Of Pakistan tells the complex saga that intertwines one family's story with the inception and development of an Islamic nation. Humayun Mirza is Iskander Mirza's only surviving son and brings a special and personal expertise to the violence-tainted partition of Indian by the colonial British Empire that resulted in the creation Pakistan. A superb contribution to International Studies reference collections, From Plassey To Pakistan is a vividly informative and very human account which deftly combines extensive research with personal remembrance.

As a descendant of the author's great-grandfather, I had grown up hearing many contradictory accounts of this family's history. This carefully researched book was very helpful to me in trying to sort out the tangled roots from which my side of the family grew. The author confesses his view is partisan, but nevertheless he does not try to hide the existence of his ancestor's various affairs in England, his marriage to an English chambermaid (his fourth wife and my great-grandmother), and treats those aspects of the story both objectively and sympathetically. Very readable!

Most of what we in the West read and hear about the Indian subcontinent comes from the British perspective. Humayun Mirza, son of Pakistan's first president and descendant of the royal Nawab Nazims of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa, brings a thoroughly researched, enlightened, and deeply honest perspective to his family's story, and by extension the history of India and Pakistan from the 1700s to the present time. Because of his unique insider's perspective, Mirza makes his historical figures come alive.

Although he is talking about his own family--even his own father--Mirza shows a principled unwillingness to tamper with the truth, even when the truth is not flattering to people he clearly admires. The rich human complexity of these powerful personalities, warts and all, is one of the things that make this book so exciting.

If you're interested in the history and politics of the region, this is a must read. If you just like to learn interesting history, it's also a treat. I'm waiting for the update covering the current situation in the region!

From Plassey to Pakistan chronicles the lineage of Humuyan Mirza, the author and only son of the first President of Pakistan. The book provides personal and well-researched historical insight into the ruling class of India, of which the author is a direct descendant.

The author's father, and principal subject of the latter part of the book, is Iskander Mirza, a highly educated and respected citizen of India worked for the British Government of India. Upon the end of British rule in 1947, the country of Pakistan was formed and Iskander Mirza emerged to become a leading public figure ("the strong man") and eventually the first President of Pakistan.

The author offers excellent insight into his father's rise to the presidency and the subsequent challenge to bring order and democracy to the newly formed country, one fraught with political corruption at the governmental and military level combined with a high level of illiteracy within the population. Despite Iskander Mirza's well intentioned efforts, instituting the type of democratic government he envisioned would prove too difficult in this environment. His presidency was usurped by a military coup in 1958. Military control has presided over Pakistan for many of the subsequent years and remains in power today.

The author goes on to revisit his own life as a descendant of India's ruling and princely class as the son of the first president of Pakistan. Like his father Isakander, the author was educated at prestigious schools while growing up, ultimately attending the Harvard School of Business and subsequently working in various capacities for the World Bank. The author currently lives in the United States.

Toward the end of the book, the author offers thoughtful suggestions that address Pakistan's current political and economic situation. Above all, the author believes a very strong leader of Pakistan is crucial to help unite the country and its divisive factions. He truly desires prosperity for Pakistan.

The book is insightful and well written. I highly recommend the book for histroy readers and those interested in current events. Given the recent tumultuous events taking place in and around Pakistan, this book is even more relevant.

I love this book. The fotos are exellent and the quality of print is good too. I also liked Alta Colombia.

This book displays the manicured gardens of the privileged and the magnificent natural beauty of simple country farm houses. It also includes outstanding photographs of titan trees and lush tropical vegetation. However, a special quality of this book is that it captures the careful planning of home and garden in Colombia. Some of the gardens in "Gardens of Colombia" are very old and offer wonderful views of mature walkways, paths and streams. My favorite pages are those that show unique Colombian courtyard gardens. In short, this Villegas editores publication is a paradise of garden landscapes and a perfect coffee table book.

mr. cobo borda has chosen an excellent photographer in claudia uribe

This book captures the true essence of Colombia. Too many people in the U.S. consider this beatiful country to be synonymous with drug trafficking. Definitely worth a look