Wounded Tigris: A River Journey through the Cradle of Civilization
The land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, where legend placed the Garden of Eden, falls mostly within the boundaries of modern-day Iraq. However, the Tigris begins within Turkey, the starting point for Leon McCarron’s journey. It wasn’t an off-road, backpacking holiday. The Northern Irish travel writer passed through dangerous country where Turkish troops use indigenous Kurds for target practice and Syria’s civil war devastated entire towns (he found communities that prefer Bashar al-Assad to the alternatives). Arriving in Iraq, he encountered Iran-backed militias that might block access—or take him hostage. Despite all difficulties, “sometimes the intrinsic hospitality” of the people he met “could be overwhelming,” he writes. Most depressing are his accounts of environmental degradation from mining and careless dam building, turning stretches of the landscape into a barren, cratered wasteland.
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