This remarkable journey – walking across most of Afghanistan shortly after the U.S. invasion – calls to mind the tales of early Brits who first introduced the folks back home to the Middle East, Africa and Asia. It makes clear the discrepancy between our brash intent to bestow democracy and pluralism upon the Afghan people, and those peoples’ ingrained sense of their own culture and values, which have been thousands of years in the making.

Stewart writes in a modest and fluid manner which underplays the risks of his journey; if not for his apparently-excellent language skills, he would almost certainly have been killed any number of times, so the book works as well as drama as it does as personal memoir.  It is also an effective rebuttal to the notion that any amount of outside ( read ‘U. S.’) force will mold these mountain dwellers to a Western-style pluralistic democratic society in any time frame acceptable to the political interests that have put us there.  His knowledge of the region’s culture and history (which, by the way, is longer than that of our own nation) reminds one that the residents have their own traditions to honor and continue.  They are not waiting around for us to remake them in our image, thank you very much.

Deserves to  become a classic of twentieth century exploration, and a critical puzzle-piece to the history of post 9-11 American adventurism .