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Ratings: ★★★★☆(4.6/5)
Genre: Travel Writing / History / Asian Studies / Geography

Book Review:
A Magnificent Journey Through Time and Space Along the Indus
Alice Albinia's ''Empires of the Indus'' is a truly remarkable book—a work of immense scholarship, intrepid travel, and beautiful prose that deserves a place on the shelf alongside the great classics of travel writing. It is a book that takes a single river and, by following its course, tells the story of an entire civilization.

The Indus is one of the world's great rivers, a source of life and a witness to history for millennia. Albinia, a young British journalist, decided to follow it from its source in the high Himalayas of Tibet to its delta on the Arabian Sea in Pakistan. It was a journey that would take her through some of the most remote and dangerous places on earth, and through more than five thousand years of history.

The book is structured as a journey downstream, but it is also a journey back in time. Albinia weaves together her own experiences—the people she meets, the landscapes she sees, the dangers she faces—with the history of the regions she passes through. She visits the ruins of Mohenjo-Daro, one of the great cities of the Indus Valley Civilization. She follows in the footsteps of Alexander the Great, whose armies crossed the Indus in the 4th century BCE. She explores the legacy of the Mughals, the British, and the creation of modern Pakistan.

But this is not just a history book. Albinia is a superb travel writer, with an eye for detail and a gift for capturing the voices of the people she meets. She introduces us to Sufi saints and Sindhi fishermen, to Baloch smugglers and Pashtun tribal leaders. She listens to their stories, and she makes us care about them.

The New Statesman called the book ''spellbinding...an impressive achievement,'' and the Financial Times described it as ''a magnificent book, a triumphant melding of travel and history.'' The Daily Telegraph named Albinia ''the best kind of travel writer.'' This 10th-anniversary edition, with a new preface, is a perfect opportunity to discover or revisit this modern classic. ''Empires of the Indus'' is a must-read for anyone interested in the history and culture of South Asia, or simply in a brilliantly told story of adventure and discovery.