⇒ Descargar Men of Salt Crossing the Sahara on the Caravan of White Gold Michael Benanav 9781592287727 Books

Men of Salt Crossing the Sahara on the Caravan of White Gold Michael Benanav 9781592287727 Books

Download As PDF : Men of Salt Crossing the Sahara on the Caravan of White Gold Michael Benanav 9781592287727 Books

Men of Salt Crossing the Sahara on the Caravan of White Gold Michael Benanav 9781592287727 Books

"Men of Salt" was recommended by a friend, and despire her enthusiasm I couldn't help but think an account of traveling on camel through the Sahara would be a real snoozer. It is most definitely not. For those of us used to the creature comforts of electricity, modern plumbing and the internet, it's hard to imagine that a group of people could be (mostly) content to live without such things in order to preserve the tradition of gathering 80-pound slabs of salt from the absolute middle of nowhere. Places that can only be reached after many weeks of lumbering across hundreds of miles of sand on the backs of the only animals suited to such travel, in an environment where ignoring Mother Nature can be fatal. That the men who risk life and limb to bring the "white gold" to towns where it can be traded for supplies to sustain their families living in tents in the desert is unfathomable to those of us who can't live without malls and supermarkets. But they do, and how they do it without complaint is what makes this a fascinating read.


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Men of Salt Crossing the Sahara on the Caravan of White Gold Michael Benanav 9781592287727 Books Reviews

I truly enoyed reading this book, although some may say that Benanav is benefiting from the slavery of others by telling this tale and making it sound benevolent and worthwhile. I believe, on the other hand, that you have to give an author appropriate credit for having the talent and balls to do something you would never even consider attempting and writing/publishing a book about the undertaking.
I discovered this book at my local library and read it nonstop in one day. I ordered the paperback from (which promptly arrived) because the book fits my definition of a keeper.

This is a compelling, haunting travel narrative. The author takes you with him on his desert adventure, sharing his experience through his vivid personal account. The photos with chapter heads and the centerpiece of stunning color photos are a bonus--it's his writing that swept me along. Afterward I found myself recalling the spellbinding experience, many years ago, of seeing LAWRENCE OF ARABIA on the big screen. I saw that movie as many times as I could on the big screen, and I'll be rereading MEN OF SALT, too, whenever I want to return to the Sahara.
Rather than repeating others' rave reviews, as the thirteenth reviewer, I'd like to give prospective readers a sampling of Benanav's descriptions and wit, which, in part, are what make MEN OF SALT CROSSING THE SAHARA ON THE CARAVAN OF WHITE GOLD such a great read.
--To explain his reservations about the trip, Benanav writes, "I was a bit uneasy about the historical precedent of guides killing their clients in the middle of the desert.... Moreover...six months earlier, the United States had invaded Iraq....Though I knew that most people in most places easily distinguished between individuals and their government, I was wary of how I'd be received as an American at that time; it'd be best, I concluded, not to let anyone know that I was Jewish, too."
--The first time he had dorno, "the nomad version of an energy shake," Benanav describes it as "a good substitute for papier mache paste."
--As he walks along side his nomadic guide, Benanav notes that "though my strides were longer, my feet sank and slid backward in the sand while Walid's padded nimbly over the surface. Walking through the desert with a nomad was like swimming with a seal."
--Aware that trucks will soon likely replace camels on the salt route, Benanav laments that "the noble ships of the desert, it seems, were bound for dry dock."
--After enduring his second torturous day, Benanav realizes "that the safest place in the Sahara was not a place at all, but a time night." And as the caravan begins to travel again, he observes that they "marched through the glow of a lustrous copper sunset and into the ghostly light cast by the almost half-moon. The world was shades of indigo and steel. The hills before us rose like rollers in a dark sea."

And so on. There was so much stellar writing in this book by page 50, in fact, that I put down the library copy I was reading and went to to order my own so that I could underline the many parts I wanted to share with friends.
Benanav's tale of travel with Malian salt traders is epic. I loved every page. Benenav -- an American Jew -- travels with Muslim West Africans in a camel train from Timbuktu across the southern Sahara's brutal Tanezrouft to Taoudenni, where a colony of salt miners have for centuries hacked out an existence (literally) from the salt deposits found just below the desert surface. The journey began just months after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, so Benenav's tale has politcal undertones which play out in a variety of ways.

Some of Benanav's best writing are his descriptions of the desert through which his camel train passes, along with his explications of local and regional history, economy, and culture. These include the history of the camel (and why for more than a thousand years camels supplanted the use of the wheel in North Africa), the comingling of Berber, Tuareg and Arab history and culture (it is Tuareg men who veil their faces, not Tuareg women) the economics of the Saharan salt trade (camels are far more economical than trucks), and much more. Benanav has done his homework; homework which informs his narrative in surprising and edifying ways.

Benanav made friends with these Arab Muslims to the extent that, while with them, he took up the custom of praying to Mecca. In this respect, the book is also the account of a brave soul who would not only cross a barren lifeless desert for the adventure, but--on a personal level--transgress the strictures of human societies and politics in order to serve a higher human ideal.

This is a wonderful read. I was not only entertained, I learned a great deal about a relatively small group of men (the salt traders) whose lives are ones of harsh existence; an existence buoyed by tradition and economics, mutual respect and assistance; an existence steeped in the culture of the Sahara and its long, long history, both human and natural.
"Men of Salt" was recommended by a friend, and despire her enthusiasm I couldn't help but think an account of traveling on camel through the Sahara would be a real snoozer. It is most definitely not. For those of us used to the creature comforts of electricity, modern plumbing and the internet, it's hard to imagine that a group of people could be (mostly) content to live without such things in order to preserve the tradition of gathering 80-pound slabs of salt from the absolute middle of nowhere. Places that can only be reached after many weeks of lumbering across hundreds of miles of sand on the backs of the only animals suited to such travel, in an environment where ignoring Mother Nature can be fatal. That the men who risk life and limb to bring the "white gold" to towns where it can be traded for supplies to sustain their families living in tents in the desert is unfathomable to those of us who can't live without malls and supermarkets. But they do, and how they do it without complaint is what makes this a fascinating read.