The Desert Road to Turkestan (Kodansha Globe) - Softcover

Lattimore, Owen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1568360703 ISBN 13: 9781568360706

Publisher: Kodansha USA, 1995

Synopsis

In inner Mongolia in 1927, when travel by rail had all but eclipsed the traditional camel caravan, Owen Lattimore embarked on the journey that would establish him as a legendary adventurer and leader among Asian scholars. THE DESERT ROAD TO TURKESTAN is Lattimore's elegant and spirited account of his harrowing expedition across the famous "Winding Road."

Setting off to rejoin his wife for their honeymoon in Chinese Turkestan, Lattimore was forced to contend with marauding troops, a lack of maps, scheming travel companions, and blinding blizzard. Luckily he had with him not only his father's retainer, Moses, but a team of camel pullers and Chinese traders he had assembled to teach him the ropes about their mysterious and now extinct way of life.

Lattimore's gifts as a linguist and his remarkable powers of observation lend his chronicle an immediacy and force that has lost now of its impact in the decades since its original publication.

About this title

About the Author:

OWEN LATTIMORE was one of the foremost China scholars of this century. In 1950 Senator Joseph McCarthy labeled him "one of the top Communist agents in the country." After years of Senate hearings and appeals, he was exonerated and left the United States to become Professor of Mongolian Studies at the University of Leeds. He died in 1989.

DAVID LATTIMORE is Professor of Chinese Studies at Brown University.

Review:

"An amazing story... [told] with intensity and power." -- The Nation

"The life and vivid record of a modern pioneer in a far-off frontier...of the new century." -- New York Herald Tribune

"[We get] a vivid sense of the drifting life of the desert." -- New York Times

About this edition

• Publisher: Kodansha USA
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 1568360703
• ISBN 13: 9781568360706
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384