Alexander's Path

📖 The Scoop

A memoir of a woman’s trek through rural Turkey and its ancient history: “A sharp-eyed, thoughtful, and knowledgeable traveler.” —The New York Times

In 1956, Freya Stark traveled through back-country Turkey by truck and horseback, often alone. She reached places little visited and never written about. The country people welcomed her with generosity despite their meager resources. She was traveling in time as well, and found significance in recalling the life of Alexander the Great as she retraced his journey in reverse. Twenty-two centuries earlier he was the first to dream of a united world—and Stark’s observations reflect not just this land’s physical connections to antiquity but the human longings that persist through millennia.

“One of the finest travel writers of [the twentieth] century.” —The New Yorker

“Stark’s forte is the ability to take the reader to an ancient site and, through the scanty remains that are left today, evoke the past of which they were a part.” —The New York Times

“Describing a Jeep-and-mule trek she undertook in 1956 through the back country of Anatolia, Stark retraces (in reverse) the progress of Alexander the Great more than two millennia before . . . Stark has a wonderfully understated sense of humor.” —Kirkus Reviews

Genre: Travel / Middle East / Turkey (fancy, right?)