Among Insurgents: Walking Through Burma

by Shelby Tucker

Overview

An adventure story of real risk-taking and the heroic age of travel.

Ten years ago, at the age of 53, Shelby Tucker set out to cross Burma on foot from China to India when land access to Burma was forbidden. Tucker had a rucksack, a diary and some inaccurate maps. He recruited a 6ft 4in Swede, Mats, whom he had met on the train to Beijing.

Near the beginning of their walk through the jungle they encountered a group of naked boys bathing – they realized too late that their Chinese Army uniforms were on the banks. With typical sangfroid, Tucker leapt in to join them, shouting incomprehensible English greetings…
Before long they were in the hands of the Kachin Independence Army and managed to survive many near misses with the Burmese Army. Despite pain and constant danger, Tucker recorded each day the vivid beauty of the country, and the courtesy and hospitality of the Kachins (the most important of Burma's hidden colonies, about whom very little has been written).

Among Insurgents was Colin Thubron's Book of the Year, The Guardian's number 1 travel hardback and the Sunday Times' number 2. It recevied warm acclaim from Anthony Sattin ('packed with insights into tribal identity and the opium trade'), Robert Carver ('outstandingly well written in the insouciant Peter Fleming tradition'), Sara Wheeler ('a thrilling book') and it must surely be shortlised for the Thomas Cook Award.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780007127054
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	05/19/2016
Series:	Walking Through Burma
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	5.08(w) x 7.80(h) x 0.04(d)

About the Author

Shelby Tucker is an American who read law at Oxford and practised for many years. He had addressed the US National Security Council on Burma and lectured on the Kachins and the Burmese Civil War at the School of Oriental and African Studies, the Royal Scottish Geographical Society and elsewhere. He has also acted as General Counsel for the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma.

What People are Saying About This

Tobias Wolff

I read the book over the weekend and laughed my head off. What an addle-pated odyssey it is. The nonchalance with which he does things that could get him locked up in some bamboo cage for thirty or forty years takes my breath away. I've seldom been more aware of the thinness of the line between courage and lunacy. Luckily for his narrative, he is aware of it too, and has great fun jumping back and forth over it. I take my hat off to him, both for actually doing what he did and for writing so well about it.

Justin Wintle

I cannot recommend Among Insurgents highly enough. Shelby Tucker describes a quite extraordinary trek across the genuinely remote and dangerous mountainous north of Burma. His account gets to grips with an immensely complicated political scenario and is written in the classic manner. I was reminded quite often of Fitzroy MacLean and Peter Fleming.

Stephen Morse

To one familiar with the dangers inherent in such an enterprise, the story almost defies belief. A 53-year-old American teams up with a 22-year-old Swede, whom he has met on a train and known for less than an hour, with the aim of trekking across one of the most inaccessible and least explored areas on earth, in a country which, everyone recognizes, is ruled by a military autocracy and which has been engaged in a vicious civil war for nearly half a century.

Editorial Reviews

‘Every few years there comes along a first book by an unknown author that makes you want to stand up and applaud. This is such a book. This is a story of real, risk-taking, old-fashioned travel, not pre-paid by a publisher or faked by a television company. Beautifully written and illustrated with colour photos and maps, it deserves to become a classic.’ Maggie Gee, Daily Telegraph

‘Tucker’s adventure is a throwback to the heroic age of travel…endlessley fascinating and well informed on this little known region of Asia…outstandingly well written in the insouciant Peter Fleming tradition…the most unusual and distinguished travel book I have read for years.’ Robert Carver, Times Literary Supplement

‘I read it with growing amazement. What a journey and what a lot of research since! Very impressive!’ Robin Hanbury-Tenison

From the Publisher

…endlessly fascinating and well–informed on this little–known region of Asia… The most unusual and distinguished travel book I have read in years.
—The Times Literary Supplement

Robert Carver

For near-lunatic courage and a unique mine of information, [this book] by Shelby Tucker might belong to another century. At the age of 53, Tucker, a maverick American lawyer, decided to cross North Burma, entering illegally from China and departing illegally into India. He was captured by Burmese Communist guerrillas, passed on to Christian Kachin rebels (with whom he was soon consorting), was arrested by the Indian army, and six months later emerged to write this astonishing book: a surreal mixture of "Boy's Own" derring-do and expert knowledge of an almost unknown region.—The Sunday Telegraph

Colin Thubron

Every few years there comes along a first book by an unknown author that makes you want to stand up and applaud. This is such a book. Driven by its author's love for a remote tract of the world and its peoples, it tells a tale of gripping heroism in a laconic, elegant style." This is a story of real, risk-taking, old-fashioned travel, not pre-paid by a publisher or faked by a television company. Beautifully written and illustrated with color photos and maps, it deserves to become a classic.—Daily Telegraph

Maggie Gee

Lunacy and bravery are two words that spring to mind with Among Insurgents: Walking Through Burma … on Shelby Tucker's China-to-India trek, meeting Burmese hill tribes and being captured by Communist troops.

Wanderlust

Tucker is an astute observer, a brave traveler and, undoubtedly, something of a nutter: who else would make provision to have his rucksack buried with him? He can be humorous too, as he was with the Indians who imprisoned him after he emerged from Burma. After his return, Tucker became involved with Burmese pressure groups and was accused of being a publicity-seeker. This is unjust, for his interest is in publicizing the plight of Burma, something he does with learning and humanity in this important account of a troubled nation.

London Sunday Times