Imperium
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Imperium by Ryszard Kapuscinski
The Polish journalist whose The Soccer War and The Emperor are counted as classics of contemporary reportage now bears witness in Imperium to the disintegration of the Soviet Union. This magisterial book combines childhood memory with unblinking journalism, a radar for the truth with a keen appreciation of the absurd. Imperium begins with Ryszard Kapuscinski's account of the Soviet occupation of his town in eastern Poland in 1939. It culminates fifty years later, with a forty-thousand-mile journey that takes him from the haunted corridors of the Kremlin to the abandoned gulag of Kolyma, from a miners' strike in the arctic circle to a panic-stricken bus ride through the war-torn Caucasus. Out of passivity and paranoia, ethnic hatred and religious fanaticism that have riven two generations of Eastern Europeans, Kapuscinski has composed a symphony for a collapsing empire--a work that translates history into the hopes and sufferings of the human beings condemned to live it.
Ryszard Kapuscinski, Poland's most celebrated foreign correspondent, was born in 1932. After graduating with a degree in history from Warsaw University, he was sent to India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan to report for the Polish news, which began his lifelong fascination with the Third World. During his four decads reporting on Asia, Latin America, and Africa, he befriended Che Guevara, Salvador Allende, and Patrice Lumumba; witnessed twenty-seven coups and revolutions; and was sentenced to death four times.His earlier books--Shah of Shahs (about the Iranian Revolution), The Emperor (about the fall of Ethiopia's Haile Selassie), Imperium (about the fall of the Soviet Union), Another Day of Life (about the last days of Portuguese Angola), and The Soccer War (a compendium of reportage from the Third World)--have been translated into nineteen languages. He died on Jan. 23, 2007.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780679747802 |
| ISBN 10 | 067974780X |
| Title | Imperium |
| Author | Ryszard Kapuscinski |
| Series | Vintage International |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Random House USA Inc |
| Year published | 1995-08-08 |
| Number of pages | 352 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |