Rating: 
Summary: An excellent, witty read
Review: As per usual, Kapusinski is insightful, witty, and incredibly well versed on his topic. I found Imperium to be one of his best, and was immediatly pulled in by the beginning chapters about his childhood in wartime Poland. Kapusinski's extensive travel in the region allows for insigtful commentary, ripe with interesting facts and blunt commentary. Overall I found Imperium extremely enjoyable, and after reading 2 of his books have already bought a third. Kapusinski is truly on of the great travel writers/commentators of our time.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent, witty read
Review: As per usual, Kapusinski is insightful, witty, and incredibly well versed on his topic. I found Imperium to be one of his best, and was immediatly pulled in by the beginning chapters about his childhood in wartime Poland. Kapusinski's extensive travel in the region allows for insigtful commentary, ripe with interesting facts and blunt commentary. Overall I found Imperium extremely enjoyable, and after reading 2 of his books have already bought a third. Kapusinski is truly on of the great travel writers/commentators of our time.
Rating:
Summary: Russia's Story through the eyes of the best polish writer
Review: At first I have to say, that I really haven't read that book in english, so I don't know the english translation, only the original version of the book. I LOVED IT. I have always been intrested in history and I have always loved "fact literature", and this book is a comprehensive and colorful, tragic story of a tragic country. It turns us inside-out. We can hardly stop reading. And all the time we have a chance to admire Ryszard Kapuscinski's specific, beutiful and simple in it's structure - style. We see a picture of a country of misery.Country of pain and blood. But not only. Through the author's eyes, we watch the people,see their emotins, their life, their faith and power.Ryszard Kapuscinski,unequalled for many world's great journalist,master of reportage has written a beautiful book, which made me a huge fan of him. Imperium - especially recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Russia/USSR from a strictly human perspective
Review: I can add little to earlier reviews other than to comment that Kapuscinski takes a refreshingly unique angle in trying to make sense of USSR/Russia. He was obviously touched by visits to the Caucausian region and these are the most emotional chapters of the book. Don't expect a travel book. Kapuscinski approaches the book from a human perspective rather than from a structural/physical geographic angle. In that respect its a book about people and their daily lives within a specific regime that so obviously turned sour from its early existence. A great book. The only way to do it justice is to read it.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating
Review: I consider myself a lifelong student of Russia and the former Soviet Union, having read and studied a huge number of books and reports on the subject. But Ryszard Kapuscinski's Imperium is superior to everything else I have read and imagined. He is a keen observer and a superb writer; he has traveled to cities and regions where even the most hardened Russian reporters didn't go. His prose is gripping and the translation is excellent. Reading this book is a rare pleasure. I recommend it very highly to all those who want to understand what Russia is and why the Russians are the way they are. They are very different from the rest of the world and Kapuscinski unravels the mystery better than any body else. Having studied Eastern Europe for more than 50 years I can say this with a great deal of confidence.
Rating:
Summary: the best of all...
Review: I my opinion, that is the one of the best book of Soviet Union, of paranoy that resim. Kapuœciñski is for me a poet and his book is poem... I agree with Pavel (the first review). In 1998 in Poland Kapuœciñski publised his last book "Heban", it's about Africa. He went there of vew years (was like a respondent)and he write of african paradoxs. It's very good book too. I hope that it will be translaiting on English soon. I'm glade too, that "Imperium" was good translated, it's very importent.
Rating:
Summary: A top blend of analysis, travel writing and great literature
Review: I read this book about five years ago and still consider it one of the best and moving I have ever read. Kapuzinsky to me is a poet. No wonder another poetic friend of mine never returned the book.
Rating:
Summary: A guide to understand all about Russia and the Russians
Review: I reccomend this book for begginer Journalists. It's amazing to find out how a journalist can analyse and describe so well the issues of a rising new nation, from the roots and pains of an old empire. Ryszard is a outstanding reporter, an outstanding author. You realize, for sure, how great is to be a journalist. I am sure that you gonna think twice if you REALLY knew something about Soviet Union. By the Way, I also reccomend this book to Boris Yeltsin...
Rating:
Summary: Profoundly enlightening...
Review: I've read this book several time since I first chanced across it in the library several years ago. Kapuscinski's vision is unique since it is essentially unclouded by idealogical or political bias. His outlook is more cultural than political and he breaks apart the image (so prevalent in the U.S.) of the Russia is/was a monolithic and homogenous bastion of Marxism.The truth (not surprisingly) is much more complicated than that. Imperium reads like a travelogue across the sweeping expanse of that was once collectively called the U.S.S.R. Kapuscinski shows that the "republic" was never more than a far-flung and disparate collection of principalities yoked by violence to form a unified front. Underneath this exterior he reveals the ethnic, cultural, and religious tensions that have always threatened to rend the region apart, and now seem destined to set the various factions against one-another. All of this underscores the fact that Kapuscinski is one of the great writers of our time (although, regretably, his output is pretty limited). His writing transcends genre and is timeless and well crafted enough to draw the reader in no matter what the subject matter. Because he seems to have little to prove his vision is less self-conscious, less affected, and more mature than the most of the batch of current fiction writers. Read this book. Read it for the history. Read it for the story-telling. Or read it for the power and grace of its language. Any way you read it, you'll be better for it...
Rating:
Summary: one of the most important and memorable books of the century
Review: IMPERIUM by Ryszard Kapuscinski This is one of the most important books of the century, ranking with ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, and THE CATCHER IN THE RYE in its intensity and ability to leave an impression. It deals with the author's experiences in travelling throughout the vast stretches of the crumbling soviet empire "Imperium" during the last days of its existence. He notices the things that only a Pole in his perverse and observant way does. He has a dry and unique style and thanks to the brilliant translation into English, his nuances come through shining and memorable. He saw the sham of communism and saw it for what it was, he exposed the nonsense of the barbed wire, the stupid logic of keeping the borders fenced in, the enslavement and imprisonment of millions. Kapuscinski is someone who directly endured the rule of the system and in his chosen profession of journalist, which presented its own problems. This is not some outsider, but someone writing from the heart, but at the same time distancing himself from it and gleaning the essentials in order to preserve forever and for all the incredible. That it is thus so seemingly simply written is an illusion. Each page can be re-read many times because it is so concentrated and filled with wondrous tales of hazardous and eventful trips to Armenia, Siberia, the Aral Sea and the desperate outer fringes of this vast land. Many incredible people were encountered along the way, one feels, that many were like him, enduring the sternness of a system designed to enslave and persist with a lie. Most endured with a wryness and a pragmatic approach of existence, taking each day as it came. That this system has ended for ever, please God willing, is in large part thanks to people like the author, whose good sense has been to record the incredible truth. IMPERIUM is a continuation of telling the truth that started in other equally bizarre stories like his EMPEROR, about Hailie Salassie, and SHAH OF SHAHS, about the Shah of Iran. Slim volumes all, but so, so evocative and lingering in the mind for years. Who can forget the official door-opener, or the cushion-bearer who travelled the world carrying an assortment of cushions and pillows to raise his height-disadvantaged imperial employer to match the chairs he encountered everywhere, whether in the White House or Buckingham Palace ? Good triumphs over evil, it always will. But it takes a long, long time and much pain. How many more years must the poor Armenians endure their plight? Who speaks for them ? Who speaks for the countless millions murdered and broken by decades of communism ? Kapuscinski is one. There are not many others. IMPERIUM is one of those books you should read. It's an incredible book that stays in the mind. Once you read it you'll be glad you did and you'll want to recommend it to everyone you meet. George Wallner Jakarta Indonesia
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