Among Insurgents: Walking Through Burma

by Shelby Tucker

Book Overview

An adventure story of real risk-taking and the heroic age of travel.

Ten years ago, at the age of 53, Shelby Tucker set out to cross Burma on foot from China to India when land access to Burma was forbidden. Tucker had a rucksack, a diary and some inaccurate maps. He recruited a 6ft 4in Swede, Mats, whom he had met on the train to Beijing.

Near the beginning of their walk through the jungle they encountered a group of naked boys bathing...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0007127057
• ISBN13: 9780007127054
• Release Date: May 2016
• Publisher: Flamingo
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.0" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Comments from the US Distributor

A BOOK OF THE YEAR! (The Sunday Telegraph, UK)"For near-lunatic courage and a unique mine of information, [this book] by Shelby Tucker might belong to another century. At the age of 53, Tucker, a maverick American lawyer, decided to cross North Burma, entering illegally from China and departing illegally into India. He was captured by Burmese Communist guerrillas, passed on to Christian Kachin rebels (with whom he was soon consorting), was arrested by the Indian army, and six months later emerged to write this astonishing book: a surreal mixture of "Boy's Own" derring-do and expert knowledge of an almost unknown region."--Colin Thubron, for The Sunday Telegraph (UK), in "Books of the Year" Column

Reviews on behalf of the distributor, Palgrave

"Every few years there comes along a first book by an unknown author that makes you want to stand up and applaud. This is such a book. Driven by its author's love for a remote tract of the world and its peoples, it tells a tale of gripping heroism in a laconic, elegant style." This is a story of real, risk-taking, old-fashioned travel, not pre-paid by a publisher or faked by a television company. Beautifully written and illustrated with color photos and maps, it deserves to become a classic." --Maggie Gee, The Daily Telegraph (UK) "Surprise hardback top-seller at specialist travel bookshop Daunt's is Shelby Tucker's tale of a lunatic walk through Burma with Karen guerrillas. Reviewer Maggie Gee is among those who have proclaimed it a classic." --The Guardian (UK)"Tucker...is...endlessly fascinating and well-informed on this little known region of Asia where the end of A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh elides surreally into Paul Theroux's Mosquito Coast. His book is also outstandingly well written in the insouciant Peter Fleming tradition. I did reflect, on finishing what is the most unusual and distinguished travel book I have read for years, that, single-handed, Shelby Tucker could have started the Vietnam War in an afternoon, if given the chance - and that he would probably regard that as some sort of compliment." --Robert Carver, The Times Literary Supplement (UK)"Tucker is an astute observer, a brave traveler and, undoubtedly, something of a nutter: who else would make provision to have his rucksack buried with him? He can be humorous too, as he was with the Indians who imprisoned him after he emerged from Burma. The Indian authorities had difficulty believing his story, and understandably so. Nobody goes for a walk in a country ruled by one of the world's most repressive regimes." --Anthony Sattin, Sunday Times (UK)"With humor and gusto, Among Insurgents charts in minute detail [an] extraordinary journey and all its hardships, from sleeping on frozen ground to wading through leech-infested streams and eating delicacies such as dove curried with rosemary. But the story transcends mere adventure. It elucidates the complex politics of post-colonial Burma and the tragic consequences of Ne Win's oppressive, dictatorial régime, dragging a once prosperous country down into abject poverty. This is a fascinating insight into Burma, and essential reading for anyone interested in the rich past and uncertain future of this astonishingly beautiful and tormented place." --Traveller (UK)"Among Insurgents: Walking Through Burma starts out as an adventure - a walk from China, through the Kachin hill country of northern Burma, to India, an assertion of the author and his companion's 'right to roam', taunted by Rangoon's closure of its land borders. Tucker, a lawyer, has addressed the US National Security Council on Burma and has acted as General Counsel for the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma. But he writes neither as a spy (as suspecte

More reviews on behalf of the US distributor, Palgrave

"I read the book over the weekend and laughed my head off. What an addle-pated odyssey it is. The nonchalance with which he does things that could get him locked up in some bamboo cage for thirty or forty years takes my breath away. I've seldom been more aware of the thinness of the line between courage and lunacy. Luckily for his narrative, he is aware of it too, and has great fun jumping back and forth over it. I take my hat off to him, both for actually doing what he did and for writing so well about it." --Tobias Wolff "I cannot recommend Among Insurgents highly enough. Shelby Tucker describes a quite extraordinary trek across the genuinely remote and dangerous mountainous north of Burma. His account gets to grips with an immensely complicated political scenario and is written in the classic manner. I was reminded quite often of Fitzroy MacLean and Peter Fleming." --Justin Wintle "To one familiar with the dangers inherent in such an enterprise, the story almost defies belief. A 53-year-old American teams up with a 22-year-old Swede, whom he has met on a train and known for less than an hour, with the aim of trekking across one of the most inaccessible and least explored areas on earth, in a country which, everyone recognizes, is ruled by a military autocracy and which has been engaged in a vicious civil war for nearly half a century." --Stephen Morse "I read it in growing amazement. What a journey and what a lot of research since! Very impressive." --Robin Hanbury-Tenison "I think [Shelby Tucker] may have written a classic of modern travel writing." --John McEnery "Among Insurgents is a vastly impressive piece of work and life. Shelby Tucker may be a mad man, but he certainly writes wonderfully." --Peter Wolf "I read it at one sitting, with my wife providing earthly sustenance at intervals, and thoroughly enjoyed the adventure. The vitality and freshness of the enterprise shone throughout." --Robert Pelletreau "Those of us who would never go on such an adventure (and that's most of us!) can have something stirred within us, feel a little freer, more willing to take risks, after reading this book." --Fred Fenton

Exceptional and most unusual travel book. Highly recommended

An Oxford-educated American ;awyer in his fifties walks across Northern Burma to fulfill an ambition held since his student yesrs. How he achives this, the dangers encountered en route, the various insurgent groups met, the cause that unites them against a powerful and ruthless enemy, the cameraderie of men under strain, the nobility of a man when tested to the limit of his courage, the beauty and grandeur of what is one of the last places on earth yet to be explored are the subjects of this book. But even more remarkable than the story itself is the author's extraordinary gift for writing. From the moment I began reading Among Insurgents, I was aware of experiencing something both rare and deeply inspired. I did not read, as much as savour the profound humanity as well as the poetry and humour expressed in this book and consider it the most unusual and distinguished travel book I have ever read.

Dances with Leeches

'Among Insurgents' by Shelby Tucker is more than a travel book. This extraordinary account of a fifty-four year old writer's trek across war-torn Burma from China to India has about it - to use Fitzgerald's phrase - 'something glorious'. It is the unique blend of high adventure with the lucid and passionate exposition of his Kachin escorts' struggles against a corrupt government (bolstered by misguided Western military aid) that looks set to make this a classic. Merciless in its ironic - and at times very amusing - exposure of folly (not least his own), lyrical in its description of this little-known land and its peoples, and ulluminating in its astute political / historical analysis, this is, by any measure, a remarkable achievement.