travel writing

I haven't read any Wilfred Thesiger, but somehow I came across this well written eulogy from 2003 which describes the post-Thesiger, post post-colonial state of travel writing:

Usually, the travel-writers had to be 1) posh, 2) young, 3) photographed in native garb at all times, and behaving like a self-conscious imperialistic adventurer (such as Thesiger); then they had 1) to denounce wicked modern culture that had destroyed everything good and pure, while acclaiming the charms of any relic of the Empire;

2) to pretend that they were constantly in personal danger; 3) imply that no Westerner had ever been there before (even when these places crawled with tourists and backpackers).

...So, the genre of post-Imperial travel-writing is extinct - or it should be. A new travel-writing style... is already developing; one free of the confusion about modernity and Empire that characterised the British elite of Thesiger's generation.

Human cultures have always been hybrids: civilisations are certainly changed by the arrival of CNN or Britney Spears T-shirts, but they remain distinctive - and often in the most terrible ways. Chechens still behead their enemies even though they listen to Eminem. The boy soldiers of Congo have mobiles and watch Friends on cable. But they still eat the livers and brains of their prisoners.