Baghdad Without a Map and Other Misadventures in Arabia by Tony Horwitz

Baghdad Without a Map and Other Misadventures in Arabia Reviews

• 
  Daren

  Tony Horwitz here collects stories about his time in the Middle East, as a journo / reporter working as a 'stringer' (ie paid piece-work or by the article picked up) as he "followed his wife" to the Middle East where she was a reporter (of a more permanent nature), based in Cairo for around two years.
  
  These are not the articles Horwitz wrote - these are better described as the stories of Horwitz finding those stories he wrote if that makes sense. We are provided with the tale of the journey as well as the discovery, of the people who assist him with his travel (formal fixers, but more often just people who help him get a ride from here to there, or make introductions for him).
  
  Egypt, Yemen, UAE, Iraq, Jordan, Israel & Palestine, Libya, Sudan & South Sudan, Lebanon and Iran all feature. Throwing himself into warzones and other dodgy places, competing with the major network reporters, interviewing refugees and those impoverished and disadvantaged as well as those despots at the top of the foodchain.
  
  I wouldn't describe as a funny book, but Horwitz is observant and amusing, while still respecting the gravity of a situation. Most often he is happy to share the problems he ends up in, and a few of those of his fellow journalists. Being raised Jewish, Horwitz describes when this is an issue to be disguised, but doesn't sour his view of Islam.
  
  P105: While in Iraq
  

  My escort worked for the Information Ministry, which, by definition, made him a poor source of information.
  "Is this near the presidential palace?" I asked as we passed a heavily guarded compound.
  "Not far," he said.
  "And where is the Foreign Ministry?"
  "Also nearby."
  Searching for neutral topics, I commented on the weather. Yes, he said, it is very hot. How hot he could not say. The weather in Baghdad was classified information, "for security."

  
  Published in 1991, it makes me feel old to acknowledge is is thirty years old, but this book describes the Middle East I am most familiar with. Much has, of course changed, and even Horwitz would not be able to make some of the trips he did (let alone us, the general public), but perhaps some places are better off. All in all, Horwitz shows us an unappealing Middle East, and from what I saw a number of reviews where people were 'put off' travelling there. I hadn't thought about this book from that perspective, but I am thankful for the months I spent in the Middle East and Egypt, and should the circumstances improve I would love to return for more!
  
  I was sorry to see that the author passed away in 2020.
  
  4.5 stars rounded up.
• 
  Julie

  This was written during the two years that Tony trailed his wife, journalist and writer Geraldine Brooks, to her various posts in the MIddle East, 1988-1990. Given that these vignettes are 20 years old, the book might seem anachronistic and nostalgic, but Horwitz's observations remain relevant. It's hard to find places where much has changed since his travels: Khartoum is still a dangerous wasteland, Cairo is still chaotic, Beirut remains beautiful but ravaged, Israelis locked seemingly forver in battle with Palestinians. Baghdad has seen the greatest upheaval- two wars- one still underway- and Hussein is long gone- but I wonder if Horwitz would deign the changes as improvements.
  
  It's a great read; Horwitz's humor is not out of place- it is self-deprecating, patient, occasionally dark and he knows when to lay it aside. He maintains the wonder, the respect and the sense of adventure and resigned weariness that separates the traveler from the tourist.
• 
  Courtnie

  I can strike 'see the cradle of the world' off my bucket list. In all honesty, it was only there as a fanciful thought in the first place. Experiencing the sands of the ancient, seeing the ruins of Babylon, touching the wailing wall, being jostled in an open air market steeped in centuries of tradition? Sounds pretty inspiring.
  
  The reality is that I'm not made of the brave, and my adventure gene doesn't function as well as it did when I was much younger. Even then, I was only cautiously excited about things far out of my comfort zone.
  
  But, I can read. I can live vicariously. I can be moved by others courageous leaps of faith, and sometimes, insane decisions.
  
  Enter Tony Horwitz.
  
  Baghdad without a Map was the selection for this month's bookclub otherwise it wouldn't have landed on my nightstand. It took me about 18 days to work my way through it and not because it was boring or uninteresting (it was the complete opposite), but because I would be motivated to seek more information about the locations that Horwitz landed.
  
  This book reads like a travelogue but with a journalistic bent. Horwitz, living in Cairo as a freelance writer while his wife, Geraldine Brooks, is on long assignment, shares his experiences as he travels to find 'the story' that can get him paid.
  
  His travels and experiences leave out few places. From Libya to Iran, from Lebanon to the Sudan, Horwitz writes about civil war, famine, police states, belly dancing, and bitter strife with a certain amount of scholarly curiosity all while profiling some everyday people along the way. And while he lambasted some areas for their backwards and illogical government, he exuded a calm that was sometimes baffling.
  
  While the book is cleverly put together by drawing out all the caricatures and lighter fare early on in places like Cairo and Yemen before delving into war torn areas in Iraq, Sudan and Lebanon, I had to wonder at the actual order of his travels - they aren't dated.
  
  For example, taking a harebrained risk of driving the most unreliable vehicle I'd ever heard of into the mountains of Yemen to talk to arms dealers (remember, this is 1990. No cell phones or other means of emergency communication) might have been less risky to him if he did that AFTER surviving shelling and other close encounters of war. But that's just a theory of mine.
  
  Because this was chosen by our history buff in bookclub, I expected it to be all dry, text book like history, and it wasn't. I'm reading more Horwitz, that's for sure.
• 
  Numidica

  My first Tony Horwitz book was One for the Road, which I read years ago, and I laughed so hard while reading it that my wife repeatedly asked me if I was all right. Baghdad Without a Map is not that funny, but it is pretty good. It certainly has put me off ever visiting Egypt, Khartoum, Iraq, Libya, Lebanon, or Yemen. Iran I might try, or South Sudan. And maybe Yemen, come to think of it. I've been to third world countries, but the Arab third world takes it to another level, apparently. Those who have never lived or spent significant time in second or third world countries, cannot truly appreciate their great good fortune in being first world residents. I have little patience for those who tell me how screwed up the US is, or Canada, or Europe; I tell them that unless you have spent a month in Honduras, please do not preach to me about how bad the US is. But I digress. This book is really instructive and pretty entertaining in explaining the Arab world and its idiosyncrasies, but I doubt it will make you want to visit.
• 
  Bob

  It's hard not to give a book by Horwitz 5 stars. The only reason this lacked a star was because I'd read his other books and, in this early work, he hadn't quite found his voice yet. You see glimpses of what will develop over the years ahead, but this one is slightly unpolished.
  
  My fear early on was that, frankly, this would make me a racist against folks from the Middle East. It paints such a grim, dark, hopeless picture of the societies there that, not only did I vow I'd never travel to the region, but it made me start to feel like the groups he portrays were less human than us "Westerners".
  
  Luckily as the book trods along, this feeling fades as he paints personal pictures of a trapped population that operate out of fear, poverty, and hopelessness. Feelings start to turn to compassion and understanding rather than disklike.
  
  I'll still never go there, but this picture of the Middle East doesn't sugar coat it, which I appreciated...and of course, as always, Horwitz adds a little light to a pretty dark region.
• 
  Jonathon McKenney

  I love Tony Horowitz, so it was a major pleasure to read some of his earlier work. I still think I prefer his writing on the South, Confederates in the Attic will always be such a good book, but this was a real enjoyable read.
• 
  Melissa

  I binge read this in an effort to finish it in 2015. I had ten pages left at midnight but I'm still counting it!
  
  Such priceless information on some fascinating countries in the Middle East. A look into several cultures, with their struggles, danger, and hopes. I found the book Bill Bryson-esque, though not as laugh out loud funny. Witty, yes. I underlined like crazy and looked up information constantly while reading it, keeping in mind that it was written in the 1990s and a lot has changed since then. So glad I read it.
• 
  Victoria Kostenko

  The first time I read this book was in the 9th grade and fell in love with it. Already an avid lover of the Middle East, Baghdad Without A Map brought a lot of the stark reality of the average person intertwined with great humor. This book is a very easy and enjoyable read, highly suggested if you also want the 411 on social behavior and how "westerners" should act. You'll laugh till you cry and even learn some great curse words in Arabic!
• 
  Jared

  I picked this book up not knowing anything of the author - it turned out to be one of the better impromptu book purchases I have made this year.
  
  Tony Horwitz's account of the Middle East in the late 80s and 90s reads like a long exposé in the Sunday Times. Wonderfully enjoyable for anyone with even a shallow interest in the region. The book does not go too deeply into any one topic - I.e. politics or socioeconomic issues - but is informative enough to make it worth your time.
• 
  Matt Bender

  This is probably my favorite Horowitz books. It’s written when he is a stringer or freelance journalist. I enjoyed reading about Yemen, Iraq, Libya, and the rest of the region at the time before the gulf wars and Arab Spring. So, it’s a Polaroid of a time.
  
  I didn’t like his Cairo chapters and the stories would probably have been better if he was more established but his struggle as an unaffiliated journalist was interesting too. There is probably a little bit too much “ruin porn” or whatever the phrase is, but this book didn’t carry on like his books on the south and I enjoyed it more because of that.
• 
  Gordon Wilson

  Probably a 4.5 star rating.
  I recently started reading more short stories as for some reason my attention span isn’t what it used to be 🤷🏼‍♂️
  Anyway an enjoyable read.
• 
  Cynthia Varady

  In 1991, then aspiring journalist Tony Horwitz traveled to the Middle East, following his journalist wife, Geraldine Brooks, who had been stationed in Cairo there as a foreign correspond. Horwitz decided to go freelance, traveling across Arabia in the hopes of breaking a story that would make him a household name. He did manage to get a few front page articles, but what he brought back in manuscript form was delightful, sadistic, full of beauty and pain. In short, Baghdad Without A Map is an amazing addition to any library, taking the reader to ancient locals to meet the fascinating residents.
  
  Being able to travel through Muslim countries as Horwitz has and still does, can really only be accomplished by a man. I felt a bit cheated by this, have flashbacks to the days when I read the Beat poets back in college, thinking how unfair it was that only someone sans vagina could have experienced what they experienced. It's a man's world, plain and simple. However Horwitz's writing is so open and honest that my resentment soon fell away, and I was left with nothing more than an inspiring tale of fishermen piloting mine infested waters, veiled women, plump exotic dancers, crumbling facades and infrastructures, and corrupt and eccentric leaders. I was shocked, horrified, and saddened. I laughed and smiled at the colorful cast of characters Horwitz meets along his travels and their heroic means of living life one day at a time. In some cases, minuet by minuet.
  
  Parts of the novel I expected, such as the treatment of women, the oppressive regimes of Saddam Hussein and Mummar Gaddafi and their propaganda machines. What I didn't expect was the hospitality Horwitz received from most of the Arab countries he visited. That that I didn't expect people to be polite and honorable. I didn't expect them to be a welcoming to someone from the United States. When people don't have much to share, but do with open arms, it makes one reflect on their own dealings. The standard greeting in Cairo is a key example:
  
  

  
  In Egypt it is considered abrupt to being any conversation without at least of the following:
  Good morning.
  Good morning to you.
  Good morning of light.
  Good morning of roses.
  Good morning of jasmines (and so on, through the rest of the garden).
  And how are you?
  Fine, and you?
  Fine also, thanks be to God.
  Thanks to God.
  Welcome, most welcome.
  Welcome to you.
  (Chorus) p.137
  

  
  
  In short, I loved Baghdad Without A Map. I drank up Horwitz's words like the hot and thirsty desert does the rain in monsoon season. I highly recommend it.
• 
  Maria (Ri)

  This was a compelling, though very difficult, read for me. I have visited the Middle East twice (Beirut, Lebanon and Bursa, Turkey) to attend international peace camps for children. Both times I was struck by the deep seated hatred even those attending a peace camp hold for others in the Middle East. I had so much trouble understanding the continued hatred for a group of people for hundreds and hundreds of years just because that is what you are taught. When does the cycle end?
  
  This book brought all of these feelings that I struggled with in the past right to the forefront again. It was hard to read about the disregard for human life. On a brighter note, there were some amusing bits that reminded me of my good times there - water pipes, backsheesh and all the salam-ing! The Middle East is a fascinating place and one that I hope can heal its past so it can move into a peaceful future.
• 
  Ben

  > The colonel, apparently, just happened to be passing the El-Kabir and thought he'd pop in for a quiet cup of coffee. Only to find two hundred reporters who had been waiting frantically for thirty-two hours for something to justify their plane bill, their hotel bill, their planned layovers in Rome on the return trip. Qaddafi, for all his madness, knew how to get the media's attention.
  
  > Even Egyptians regarded their southern neighbor with distaste. Sudan was filthy and poor, they observed without irony, and the Sudanese were lazy. This from a country where a government survey once concluded that the average Egyptian worked twenty-six minutes a day
  
  > In Muglad a hole was measured in man-lengths—a well, say, was “six men deep”—and the scale came with an ethnic proviso. Arab or Dinka? If Dinka, each man-length was at least six inches greater.
• 
  Kelsey Burnette

  Interesting to read this book now, more than 20 years after it was first published. Horwitz was able to paint a light-hearted and charming portrait of the Middle East while effectively commenting on the violence, sexism, poverty, and chaos he bumbled through as a freelance journalist. Hard to imagine him surviving today. Couldn't help but think of the journalists in recent days who have been captured and beheaded, as well as those who continue to report. They, I'm sure, have found the same ability to appreciate aspects of the area they are experiencing firsthand, but bumbling through in such a lighthearted fashion would not appear to be so much of an option these days.
• 
  Bridget

  What a lovely book this was! Simply a joy to read. I was wary at first because it's a good twenty years old (when he talks about the Persian Gulf War, he means the one between Iraq and Iran), but really, how much has changed in the Middle East when it comes to stuff like baksheesh and run-down infrastructure? The parts I loved best were the parts about places I've lived and traveled, but really, the whole book is fascinating. It reminded me of Robert D. Kaplan Lite - all the quirky travel experiences without the grand political commentary. This is the kind of book I'd like to write someday.
• 
  Kim

  This isn't the type of book I would normally pick out for myself to read-it was a book club pick. I like to venture out and try new things, but this book was not for me. The writing was good and all, but the subject matter and the fact that there is really no plot-I just couldn't get into it. It's not my type of book. I do think people who like reading non-fic and/or travel memoirs would probably really enjoy this book. But at least now I can say I've read a non-fiction because it will probably never happen again!
• 
  Kennedy

  Fascinating!
  
  I loved this book. Despite speaking of experiences from 20 years ago, I felt the book showed a lot of relevant-to-today culture. If you like Bill Bryson's books, I think you'd like this one as well. It was so informative about a important region of the world, but humorous and easy to read! I just loved this book!
• 
  Angie

  This book gave an interesting insider look into Arab countries and gives good insight into the state of these nations and how they became so dysfunctional. Reminded me why I have no desire to visit this area of the world.
• 
  Cynthisa

  Loved this book for its look at the Middle East: compelling yet tender, frank yet kind. An excellent read and a must for anyone planning to travel to that region of the world.
• 
  John

  One of the demonstrators peeled off to rest by the curb, and I edged over to ask him what the mourners were shouting.
  "Death to America," he said.
  "Oh." I reached for my notebook as self-protection and scribbled the Farsi transliteration: Margbar Omrika.
  "You are American?" he asked.
  "Yes. A journalist." I braced myself for a diatribe against the West and its arrogant trumpets.
  "I must ask you something," the man said. "Have you ever been to Disneyland?"
  "As a kid, yes."
  The man nodded, thoughtfully stroking his beard. "My brother lives in California and has written me about Disneyland," he continued. "It has always been my dream to go there and take my children on the tea-cup ride."
  With that, he rejoined the marchers, raised his fist and yelled, "Death to America!" again.
  
  Having read Tony Horwitz's last book ("Spying on the South") earlier this year, I turned to one of his earliest books in "Baghdad Without a Map." It chronicles the time he and his wife, Geraldine Brooks (both would go on to win Pulitzer Prizes) spent in the Arab world during the 1980s, during the time of the Iran-Iraq war.
  Horwitz, who died earlier this year (2019) of a heart attack, had great courage (consider: Jewish man from America covering the Arab world in the 1980s, or any other decade), uncanny observational skills, a willingness to go the extra mile and a way of telling his story respectfully but with good humor.
  There are numerous passages in this book, such as the one quoted above following the Ayatollah Khomeini's funeral, that were so fun to read that I instantly read them again.
  Like this, from a chapter on Yemen:
  
  "I am Mohammed, at your service," he said, straightening his turban. "You want change money? You want sugar?" He paused. "You want bayonet?"
  I smiled noncommittally. His question provided a structure for my reporting. Posing as a shopper, I would tease out information without actually buying anything.
  "Something big, maybe?" Mohammed asked. He opened a cabinet to reveal a small arsenal of automatic weapons. "One thousand two hundred riyals," he said, gesturing at a Belgian FN rifle. Then he reached under the counter for a Turkish musket that looked as though it had done service in the Siege of Constantinople. It weighed roughly a hundred pounds. "This one very cheap, only three hundred riyals."
  "Very nice." I gave Mohammed the gun and another noncommittal smile.
  He nodded knowingly and opened a drawer. "These just in from Iran," he said, dropping a plump green grenade in my hand. "For you I make a special deal."
  Mohammed's prices did seem rather special. Only $20 for the grenade, $5 for a bayonet and $120 for an assault rifle. A man could play Rambo for less money than he paid for a week's worth of qat.
  I asked Mohammed where all the weapons came from.
  "Libya, Djibouti, Egypt, Iran -- we like all country. It go bang, it go boom, we buy." He flashed me another Cheshire-cat grin. "You like grenade. What is two hundred riyals to a rich man?"
  I still had the explosive in my hand, afraid even to hand it back to him. "Maybe another day," I said.
  Mohammed shrugged and plucked the grenade from my palm. "Other villages, you find grenades only at Friday market. At Mohammed's, every day."
  
  The book is dated now, of course -- these things happened 30+ years ago. But it provides context for what has happened since. And things haven't really changed all that much.
  
• 
  Nicholas

  What a gift, this book.
  
  I happened upon it in dusty, chaotic bookshop in a small town in Maine, and while the topic of the book might not have immediately roped me in (having lived in Saudi Arabia for two years myself and traveled through the middle east a fair bit, I’m not exactly hankering for more of those desert places) reading the first couple of pages definitely did.
  
  Tony Horwitz is so damn good, with his pitch-perfect wit, adventurous bravery, and stalwart reporting, he’s the kind of writer you want to follow to the ends of the earth. And that’s literally what you do when reading this book. He’s out there! In the wastelands and combat zones, in dark alleys and leper colonies, in dank bars and rogue airplanes, from fiendish Yemen qat markets to the ‘vast laboratory of human misery’ of Sudan. Like that other late, great writer named Tony, he of the travel shows: there is no place this Tony won’t go, no creature too ragged for him to hang out with, no experience too insane for him to try, and just like that other Tony this one has a charismatic knack for making you feel like you’re right there riding shotgun with him.
  
  His passages on eating qat in Yemen are brilliantly hysterical and deadly accurate on the giddy nuttiness of a speedy high:
  ‘I opened my eyes and felt at once tipsy and hyperalert, as if I’d knocked back two good Irish coffees, or eight. I wanted to blurt out something special to each person in the room—all at once. Either that or go and ask Mansour’s wife for a long and languorous massage...We vaulted right over small talk and straight into politics, religion, qat, culture, dreams, qat, fears, fantasies, qat. It was all I could do to let Mansour finish a sentence before launching into a fresh thought of my own…‘I agree with you completely but there's a whole nother way to look at this issue,’ I jabbered, convinced that I was about the deliver the most perceptive comment ever on the topic. The topic, which was—what was it? Mansour smiled. We giggled and kept on chewing leaves, like a pair of dopey koalas.’
  
  Unruly Egyptian drivers are ‘hooded swordsmen delivering Islamic justice’
  
  In the ‘lunacy’ of driving in Sanaa, Horwitz is astonished to find a policeman pulling him over ‘for one of the dozen or so traffic felonies I was committing along with every other driver in Sanaa.’
  
  When at a leper colony Horwitz steps into ‘a fetid pool of open sewage’, he chuckles along with some onlooking lepers, noting, ‘It was the least I could do, lighten a leper’s day.’
  
  At a tacky nightclub in Cairo the bellydancers look like ‘gorgons...the fat woman at a circus freak show...with the stage presence of an amateur wrestler.’
  
  Regarding the religious fanaticism of hasidic jews and fundamentalism muslims ‘both see God’s hand in everything they do, and godlessness in everything done by anyone else.
  
  It’s a terrible loss that Horwitz too is gone so young. But he left us an incredible catalogue of books to turn to. I had so much fun reading this early book of his, with its plethora of hilarious passages, felicitous phrases, stark observations, and I can’t wait to devour more of his work. Rest in peace, Tony. You are missed. Both Tonys.
• 
  Darshika

  Books written by a foreigner should always be taken with a pinch of salt, imagine reading about a farewell dance from a Iranian perspective, the person would obviously miss a lot in the translation. Despite that Tony Horwitz has managed to write a book which is funny, articulate, heartwarming and true in at least the places I could verify. Reading the book in a first world country can make you seriously thank your stars that you were born where you were born. The tense situation in many of these countries is wrapped in light hearted commentary but he does manage to reveal a lot about the difficulties these people face in day to day life. I cannot imagine living in Yemen with people brandishing daggers all the time. There is nice chapter about three Indians in a boat off the coast of UAE and it is hilarious how relatable it is. Chapters on Libya and Iran were my favorite, he has actually seen Gaddafi up close and was present at Khomeini funeral, wow. The Jordan river chapter is sad but with light banter in between. I sometimes envied his life, he got to experience so many cultures first hand but then he also was almost shelled of the coast of Lebanon. All in all it's up put down able, great fun. If some middle eastern country person can write it's review I would like to know it. For example in the Yemen chapter he talked about these little wisdoms written on the foreigner intro book which he found hilarious but we have similar quotes in my country as well and I understood what they meant and why they were put there. So it would be nice to understand the deeper meaning of some of the stuff described here.
• 
  Stephen

  So your wife is on extended assignment in Cairo, and you’re a freelance journalist without a regular gig. What do you do? Why not wander around northern Africa, the Arab world, and Iran whenever an opportunity presents itself – chasing stories, even when they led you into dark mountains where grenades and AKs are cheaper than a week’s worth of the local narcotic? Baghdad without a Map presents anecdotes from Tony Horowitz’s time spent in Iraq, Egypt, Libya, Sudan, Jordan, Yemen, and Iran, mixing comedy and tragedy.
  
  Because Horowitz is chasing stories -- a refugee crisis in Sudan, for instance, or the still-simmering conflict between Iraq and Iran on the border -- he is often exposed to misery and danger. He still finds humor in the chaos of Cairo's streets, the chanciness of Egyptian-Sudanese air travel, or the loopiness of Yemense men after a goodly amount of qat-chewing. Horowitz attempts to learn about local cultures and politics as he can on the ground, conversing with people in his rough Arabic, chewing qat, or playing soccer. Although much of the middle east has changed drastically since the 1980s – the invasion of Iraq and the Arab spring just in the last ten years, these snapshots of life in the middle east are worth taking a look at for readers with any human interest in the region.
  
• 
  Lancelot du Lac

  Clichéd and biased towards the West. It's true that a middle-eastern regime (Iran for instance) may have its own way of handling things but that doesn't make it a devil incarnate. Everything it does is just to protect its sovereignty and thwart the annoying bossiness/domination of the US everywhere. Any other proud country would/should do the same. This slavering beast called Uncle Sam who considers poverty and hunger an exotic/romantic affair has no right to talk about "big issues" and "human crises". After usurping the land of Native-Americans and pushing them to the dirt-holes of reservations, this capitalist bugger now wants to control the choicest fossil fuel reserves. The people of Iran very beautifully put it when they say, "Long live American people, down with American regime." A regime that is so confused that it spreads hatred against Muslims in its own country but also incites warfare and takes sides of rebelling Islamic factions in the Middle-East.
• 
  Mitch

  This was an interesting read about a freelance writer and his varied experiences in the Middle East. He traveled quite extensively and I believe he has painted a clear picture of his experiences.
  
  In many cases, though not all, Middle Easterners do not come off as very decent people. There is a preponderance of deceit and a tendency towards violence that are unsettling to say the least. Several of the chapters are out and out horrifying in their depictions of atrocities committed there.
  
  I've traveled myself to 3 or 4 Middle Eastern countries, met some good people there, but also experienced some of the negative characteristics found in this book. At this point, I am happier to experience the area through reading rather than first hand.
  
  I think a reader can discover the divides between the Middle East and the West from reading a book such as this.