Sons of Sindbad Paperback – December 31, 2010

Historically Arab power was projected more by sea than by land. Arab fleets dominated the Mediterranean Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Gulf, the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean and the eastern seas of southeast Asia. Arab ships carried goods between China and India and the Middle East, and back and forth across the Mediterranean for centuries. Ever wondered what it was like to sail on a dhow in the days of Sindbad, in the days before aircraft, in the days before steam, in the days before Europeans found their way around the southern end of Africa ca. 1500? Dhows and related types of ships represent the earliest of all sailing vessels, and the lanes that they plied in the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, down the coast of East Africa and across the ocean to India were the first long-range sea routes ever sailed. In this book Captain Villiers documened life aboard a dhow on an East African voyage at the very moment in history when such vessels were about to disappear forever. Returning from East Africa, his dhow sailed to Kuwait and he documented the way of life there before oil took off, when pearling was an economic mainstay. A few years after the book was written, oil became the basis of the Kuwaiti and Saudi economies, the sailing dhows faded away, and the 4000-year old ways of sailing and trading described in this book disappeared forever. This is a great travelogue that is undeservedly obscure. Not only was Villiers a capable captain and writer, he was also an accomplished photographer. His unique images of a now-vanished way of life make this book even more remarkable, and the reproduction quality in this printing is suberb. I wouldn't have believed that sailors could climb straight up masts and out along yardarms barefoot, without any supporting ratlines other other assistance from rigging (never mind safety harnesses) on ships that were rolling, pitching and yawing, if I didn't see them doing it in Villiers' photographs. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in early sailing, early world trade, the early world of the Indian Ocean, and the Arab world in the days before oil dominated the economies and politics of the Middle East.

The book is a good book to keep and present as a gift. It is limited in scope to part of a bigger process and number of people that should have been included as main figures. Some photographs were not identified as to what they are. They were described by general statements that have no direct bearing on them. I did purchase several copies as gifts to friends.

This book is the first person account of Alan Villier's classic regarding his travels around the Indian Ocean with Arabs from Arabia. First published in 1940 it is an interesting insight into the vanishing culture of the sea-faring Arabs who had plied the Indian Ocean and the coasts of Africa for 1500 years or more. Originally these men had mostly been slavers, raiding and colonizing the East African coast, but by 1940 they were poorer, slavery having been abolished, and modernity was catching up with them. The book describes the voyage to Zanzibar, life at Zanzibar and Rufiji, also Aden in Yemen. There is extensive descriptions of Kuwait. There are descriptions of life abourd the Dhow and of life of pearlers in the Persian gulf.This is classic travel literature, and more so because it describes a seldom discussed subject, one that has vanished for the most part.That being said the story seems to be missing something intangible, it seems less than complete, for lack of perhaps not enough description, enough interest. But there are many stories of the crew and the life of the Arabs on board ship and their hardships.Seth J. Frantzman