Michael Benanav's Critical Reads

Michael Benanav is the author of three books, including Men Of Salt: Crossing the Sahara on the Caravan of White Gold, for which he traveled 1000 miles with one of the last working camel caravans on earth. His work, including articles and images from five continents, appears in The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, Geographical Magazine, Sierra Magazine, Lonely Planet, and more. He is also the founder of Traditional Cultures Project, an educational non-profit that documents traditional and indigenous cultures around the world. For more, visit his website at www.michaelbenanav.com. Michael will discuss Himalaya Bound on Thursday, February 22nd, 6pm at the Co-op.

Men Of Salt: Crossing the Sahara on the Caravan of White Gold, by Michael Benanav - Follows one of the world's last working camel caravans across the ancient salt trading routes north of Timbuktu. A fascinating read for anyone, and for me, as my first book, the experience of researching and writing it has been a major touchstone for all of my subsequent work - perhaps especially the book about which I'll be speaking, Himalaya Bound, which also tells the story of a journey with tribal people.

The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, by T.E. Lawrence - In addition to the first-hand historical account of the Arab campaign against the Turks in World War I, this book is incredibly valuable as a memoir of a man who immerses in culture very foreign to his own. In that regard, I found it inspirational.

The Songlines, by Bruce Chatwin - Arguably one of the best "travel" books ever written, it distills Chatwin's years of experiences around the world into something of a manifesto, declared with a voice as astute as it is human.

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, by James Agee and Walker Evans - For me, it's Evans's photographs that make this a "critical read." The choices that he made, particularly in allowing the people in the images to communicate directly - if silently - through their portraits, was a revelation.

About Himalaya Bound: Following his vivid account of traveling with one of the last camel caravans on earth in Men of Salt, Michael Benanav now brings us along on a journey with a tribe of forest-dwelling nomads in India. Welcomed into a family of nomadic water buffalo herders, he joins them on their annual spring migration into the Himalayas. More than a glimpse into an endangered culture, this superb adventure explores the relationship between humankind and wild lands, and the dubious effect of environmental conservation on peoples whose lives are inseparably intertwined with the natural world. The migration Benanav embarked upon was plagued with problems, as government officials threatened to ban this nomadic family—and others in the Van Gujjar tribe—from the high alpine meadows where they had summered for centuries. Faced with the possibility that their beloved buffaloes would starve to death, and that their age-old way of life was doomed, the family charted a risky new course, which would culminating in an astonishing mountain rescue. And Benanav was arrested for documenting the story of their plight. Intimate and enthralling, Himalaya Bound paints a sublime picture of a rarely-seen world, revealing the hopes and fears, hardships and joys, of a people who wonder if there is still a place for them on this planet. Laced with stories of tribal cultures from India to Yellowstone, from Jordan to Kenya, Benanav deftly wends through the controversial terrain where Western ways of protecting the environment clash with indigenous understandings of nature. Himalaya Bound celebrates and mourns an ancient way of life, while revealing an unlikely battleground in the fight to save the earth.