Thesiger

What did the retainers and the sheikhs' heirs think of Thesiger?

Drawn to Harsh Places D.J. Taylor 2011

Even before accepting his first job, in the Sudanese Political Service, Thesiger had marked his card by financing an expedition through the forbidden sultanate of Aussa in eastern Ethiopia to find the source of the Awash River.

Drawn to Harsh Places D.J. Taylor 2011

Biographies of famous travelers—and Mr. Maitland's "Wilfred Thesiger" is an especially good example of the genre—are always an excuse to ponder first principles.

Drawn to Harsh Places D.J. Taylor 2011

There is something impressively single-minded about Thesiger's keenness on extirpating the foreskin—only one among a number of much-needed doctoring skills he brought to a region short on medical help—and also something faintly creepy.

Drawn to Harsh Places D.J. Taylor 2011

Thesiger reckoned his books mere "byproducts" of his journeys.

Drawn to Harsh Places D.J. Taylor 2011

If there was one thing that could have been said of Thesiger 1910-2003, always and for all time, it was that he stuck at absolutely nothing.

Drawn to Harsh Places D.J. Taylor 2011

Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford A 1950 photograph by Wilfred Thesiger of his traveling party passing a watchtower in the channel separating Abu Dhabi from the Arabian Peninsula.

Drawn to Harsh Places D.J. Taylor 2011

Thesiger lived until his 94th year, knighted by his sovereign and cursing the "sedentary" boredom of his final days.

Drawn to Harsh Places D.J. Taylor 2011

The son of a consular official stranded in the Abyssinian capital of Addis Ababa by World War I, Thesiger pined for the "idyllic world" of his pre-teenage years.

Drawn to Harsh Places D.J. Taylor 2011

Thesiger knew Waugh slightly, admiring his prose style and loathing his support for Mussolini's Abyssinian conquests.

Drawn to Harsh Places D.J. Taylor 2011