{"product_id":"2026200015486-secondhand-journey-into-russia","title":"Journey Into Russia","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBook: Good\u003cbr\u003eJacket: Chipped and worn with some minor damage\u003cbr\u003ePages: Tanning and foxing\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt the height of the Cold War, when the Soviet Union remained one of the most impenetrable and misunderstood nations on earth, the intrepid South African writer and explorer Laurens van der Post ventured behind the Iron Curtain and returned with a portrait of breathtaking depth and humanity. Journey Into Russia chronicles his remarkable odyssey across the vast Soviet landscape — from its teeming cities to its remote rural heartlands — where he sought not the machinery of ideology, but the soul of the Russian people themselves. With the eye of an anthropologist and the sensibility of a poet, van der Post uncovers the paradoxes of a civilization simultaneously ancient and brutally modern, intimate and monolithic, fearful and profoundly hospitable.\n\nVan der Post's prose is characteristically lyrical and searching, drawing on his lifelong fascination with the inner lives of cultures often dismissed or caricatured by the Western gaze. Much like his celebrated works on Africa, this account argues that true understanding of a people demands patience, humility, and a willingness to listen — qualities that transform what might have been a political travelogue into something far more enduring: a meditation on the human condition itself. For anyone who has ever wondered what lies beneath the surface of history's most enigmatic empire, this extraordinary journey offers answers that are as unsettling as they are illuminating.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49203214057691,"sku":"2026200015486-SECONDHAND","price":12.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/25da8609-db97-49ee-86a4-dec2ed94c8ad.png?v=1788145959","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026200015486-secondhand-journey-into-russia","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}