A review by thereadingrunnner
The Buried: An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution by Peter Hessler

3.0

No doubt that Hessler is a fantastic writer. He has an extraordinary ability to make history interesting. That being said, history is not my thing and this book was very much outside of my "norm". It was so interesting, captivating at times; however, I had to read it very slowly to catch all of the details. The biggest struggle for me was that it jumped time quite often, moving between various stages of history - present day to B.C. to pre-revolution. I think this is a stylistic thing, but it made a difficult read even more difficult, especially if you are unfamiliar with the history and politics of Egypt. Eventually as I read and learned more, it was less cumbersome to move between time periods, but I found myself referencing the time table at the front quite often (thank you for including that!). I also think it was a bit on the lengthy side so by the end I was definitely be ready to be done with it. I did really enjoy the journey of Hessler and his wife learning the Arabic language that was interspersed throughout and the transformation of Sayyed. Overall I think this would really appeal to lovers of history, but it was a difficult read for me personally.