Traveling Heavy is a deeply moving; unconventional memoir by the master storyteller and cultural anthropologist Ruth Behar. Through evocative stories; she portrays her life as an immigrant child and later; as an adult woman who loves to travel but is terrified of boarding a plane. With an open heart; she writes about her Yiddish-Sephardic-Cuban-American family; as well as the strangers who show her kindness as she makes her way through the world. Compassionate; curious; and unafraid to reveal her failings; Behar embraces the unexpected insights and adventures of travel; whether those be learning that she longed to become a mother after being accused of giving the evil eye to a baby in rural Mexico; or going on a zany pilgrimage to the Behar World Summit in the Spanish town of Béjar.Behar calls herself an anthropologist who specializes in homesickness. Repeatedly returning to her homeland of Cuba; unwilling to utter her last goodbye; she is obsessed by the question of why we leave home to find home. For those of us who travel heavy with our own baggage; Behar is an indispensable guide; full of grace and hope; in the perpetual search for connection that defines our humanity.
#958269 in Books Duke University Press Books 1999-02-11 1999-02-11Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.25 x 1.30 x 6.00l; 1.60 #File Name: 0822321467520 pages
Review
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Good Peruvian historyBy Claudia CastilloHistory can be enjoyed over the years and coming back to many books helps one understand how history is shaped by the events of the day.0 of 3 people found the following review helpful. tedious but informativeBy Earnest SludgeAccording to this; the principal actors; Pizarro and Almagro; were illiterate; although they did have secretaries. So; this book is as close to a first person narrative of the events as we can get.I bought this after reading Bernal Diaz's "Conquest of New Spain"; expecting something fairly similar. Cieza interviewed many of the survivors of these events so this book is almost more reportage then history. Nonetheless; the narrative tends to be dull and plodding. The Aztecs showed a lot more backbone; too. The Inca-ruled Indians in Peru were totally scared crazy by the Spaniard's horses.There's a lot of ridiculous; whiny moralizing done; as well; mostly about how cruel; greedy and lecherous the Spaniards were. As if you can conduct a conquest with kid gloves.This is more for the history buff and not for the fan of first-person narratives and first-contact with Indians narratives.The text is beautifully presented in this edition. A real first-class job.5 of 5 people found the following review helpful. Readable Account of Incan History and The ConquestBy S. PactorIncan Civilization isn't exactly "pre-historic." True; they didn't have writing technically speaking but their rise was more or less contemporaneous with the arrival of the Spainards. The Incans themselves didn't really exist before 1300 AD- before then they were just another tribe. The civilization laid south as evidenced by the Tuahuacnian ruins south of Titicaca. The so-called "Nazca" lines were created by the same people; around 1000 AD. Clearly; the Incans didn't invent civilization in the Andes. The Incans didn't even create the language; Quechan; which became the lingua franca of the entire Andes at the time of Spanish contact. Quechan came from a group that lived north of the original base for the Incans. The writer of this book; Pedro de Cieza; was actually a soldier who travelled with the Conquistador's who conquered the Incan empire. His lengthy; well written history of pre-Columbian Peru lay more or less forgotten until well into the 19th century. This particular English translation was published in 1959- the first American edition; I think. Cieza was not high ranking Conquistador; he was more a page or assistant type. The Incas makes a great starting point for anyone trying to grasp the complexity of pre-Columbian Andean civilization. Cieza describes the history of the Incan Empire in detail; and he travelled to almost all of the locations he wrote about. Cieza was the first person to describe the potato; he was the first person to write about the Tuohuacian civilization and also the first person to link them to the Nazca Area pre Incan civilization. He was both sympathetic to Incan achievments and skeptical about their claims regarding bringing civilization to the larger Andean region. He accurately described the arriviste nature of the Incans; similar in many ways to the rise of the Aztecs in the valley of Mexico prior to the contact with Cortes. The great irony of the Incan Empire is that it was their penchant for collecting gold; silver and jewels that made them such an attractive target to the Spainards. The Incans were already mining precious metals from the mountains before the Europeans showed up. They loved gold and silver. Truly; the Incan Spanish conflict is the one time when the whole city of gold thing actually worked out. That city of gold was Cuzco; and the Spainards took all the gold; and then discovered the largest mine of silver in the entire world in Potosi (modern day Bolivia) so that by the early 17th century Galleons filled with silver were being loaded outside of Lima. The Incans made it easy for the Spanish because they had gone through the distinct trouble of pacifying and homogenizing a hugely diverse area. The Incans gave everyone one language- Quechan- they build highways through the mountains to facilitate rapid transit between all points of the Empire. All the Conquistadors had to do was find Cuzco and they could go anywhere the Incans had been. The entire book illustrates the age old principle of conflicts between civilizations: A well assembled Empire is easy to take over then a bunch of ununified Tribes.
