China's Ancient Tea Horse
Road –Text by Andrew Forbes, Photographs by David Henley
History
2782 KB / 91 pages
Footnotes/Endnotes: No
Illustrations: Yes
Suitable for eReaders: Not really *
4 Stars
If you are a tea drinker, and interested in the history of
tea, this might be an utterly fascinating book. I am neither a tea drinker, nor
particularly fascinated by the history of tea, and it was merely interesting.
However, I am fascinated by the history of China, and bought
this book for my Kindle. Big mistrake.
There are several photos and copies of paintings in this book that
were too small to be enjoyed on my Kindle, and the captions below almost
unreadable. And, because I have last year's Kindle, and not the Kindle Fire,
they were all in black and white. (They may be black and white in the hard copy, I don't know.)
And the formatting was a tad off putting. there were line
breaks where there should have been none, thereby creating paragraphs where
there should have been none. Irritating, not major. Okay, major enough I'm
grousing about it.
I thoroughly enjoyed the text (except for the formatting
issues) and think I would have enjoyed the photos had I been able to properly
see them. The map was totally useless. Now, what I would have loved to have
read a hard copy book, with a fold-out map (I love maps. One can never have too
many maps.) and been able to follow along as I read the text, and viewed the
pictures. Alas, the only map was at the very beginning and too small hard to read.
The Ancient China Tea Horse Road was a caravan route,
actually several that merged along the way, from China to Lhasa, Tibet, and
then on across Tibet and down into Burma, India and other countries. It was
actually in use until the Chinese claimed their ancient right to Tibet (Kublai
Khan's era, I think). And is, once again, in use, however, there is now a road,
instead of a trail.
Porters, and sometimes mules, carried teas, and other trade
goods, depending on where one was along the way across high and treacherous
trails up the Himalaya Mountains. This route was especially important during WWII and when the Communists were fighting Chiang Kai-Shek. There are actual photos of some of the
porters, and an interview in this book. That, alone, made it worth the read. I
just wish the photos had been larger. And the map usable.
*NOTE: I was given a Kindle Fire for my birthday, and I have to say that, on the fire, the book is great. The illustrations are vivid, and the formatting perfect.
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