Rory MacLean

This is a tour de force of travel writing and quite honestly one of the best books about the history of an area I’ve had the opportunity to read. Described as the biography of the city of Berlin, it is a fascinating year by year/ person by person story of the tumultuous city that has been overrun, chopped in half, bombed to perdition, rebuilt, reconnected. A perfect city for this analysis, and MacLean makes each and every story compelling and fascinating.

MacLean is the sort of person I show more could listen to for hours. He was just a presenter at the Iceland Writers Conference and he is both humble and intensely excited about his next project. It takes a fine line when a successful writer to not sound smug and dismissive and he was neither. I immediately went out and bought a copy of Stalin’s Nose, about his travels to Russia. I know I will be fascinated. show less

This summer, when it seems likely that my travel mileage will be the smallest since when I was a baby (thank you, global pandemic) I decided to do a little bit of armchair travelling. Rather than providing a nostalgic journey to happier times, this book only reminded me how the world is screwed up beyond repair.

I was aware that this wasn't a memoir from an overland journey from Europe to Nepal in 1960s/70s. The author made that clear in the blurb - he only tried to follow in the footsteps show more of the original intrepids. Obviously, the situation in the countries on the hippie trail has drastically changed, but that was not the main source of my disappointment.

From an author who decides to write about the hippie trail, something so deeply inspired by the idealism of people who had undertaken such a journey, I expected a memoir with a little more flair, and more importantly, more depth. MacLean is without a doubt knowledgeable and presents a bunch of facts that may or may not be related to the topic. However, more often than not the factual data is very general and sometimes simply wrong.

His remarks on the local people are sometimes so superficial (no local Turks at a beach rave in Olympos?) and full of cliches to the point that I started to think he made up some portions of the journey.

My least favourite part of the book was Afghanistan, I thought that the American military base stuff was redundant and regardless of the fact that is a very big part of life in Afghanistan today, for a book that is supposed to be about hippies it just didn't fit at all.

Another thing that bothered me was that the writing style was boring and without style. This book reads fast and easily but it really doesn't make you think. I feel like MacLean is stuck between trying to be politically correct and sharing an honest opinion, but that kind of playing it safe never made for high-quality travel writing. show less

I read this book in preparation for a trip to Berlin in September. It did not disappoint. It tells the story of Berlin- a tragic city in many ways- from early medieval times to present day in a series of chapters that read like short stories. It gave me a sense of the city throughout the ages that will hold me in good stead when I go there.

Rory MacLean retraces the steps of his 1992 book (Stalin's nose) in reverse order, giving the reader multiple examples of how the hopes for freedom immediately engendered by end of the Soviet block have been hijacked by cynical opportunists and home spun populists, creating a situation where even historical truth is now only fodder for limitless debate. At times depressing, often challenging, and always fascinating 'Pravda ha ha' is certainly an excellent example of travel writing at its best.