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Wilfred Patrick Thesiger ( 3 June, 1910 – August 24, 2003) was a British explorer and travel writer born in Addis Ababa in Abyssinia (now Ethiopia). His father was a British diplomat. He was educated at Eton College and Oxford but soon returned to Africa. He joined the Sudan Political Service in 1934, fought in the newly-formed SAS in North Africa during World War II, and later worked in Arabia with the Desert Locusts Research Organisation. His travels also took him to IraqThe Republic of Iraq is a Middle Eastern country in southwestern Asia encompassing the ancient region of Mesopotamia. It shares borders with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to the south, Turkey to the north, Syria to the north-west, Jordan to the west and Iran to, PersiaPersia is the historical name for the state of Iran. The name was used in the West due to the ancient Greek name for Iran, Persis''. Persia is used to describe the nation of Iran, its people, or its ancient empire. The name Persia comes from a province in (now IranIran ( Persian: ) is a Middle Eastern country located in southwestern Asia that until 1935 was referred to in the West as Persia''. It borders Pakistan (909km of border) and Afghanistan (936km) to the east, Turkmenistan (1000km) to the northeast, the Casp), KurdistanFor the Iranian province of Kurdistan, please see Kurdistan (province). Kurdistan is an area in the Middle East, inhabited mainly by the Kurds, covering parts of Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Georgia and Syria. Its borders are hard to define, as none of the states, PakistanIslami Jamhuria Pakistan ( In Detail) ( In Detail) National motto: Iman, Ittehad, Nazm( Urdu: "Faith, Unity, Discipline" Official Language(s) Urdu, English Capital Islamabad Largest City Karachi President General Pervez Musharraf Prime Minister Shaukat Az and KenyaKenya (pronounced KEN-ya; the pronunciation KEEN-ya is archaic) is a country of eastern Africa, bordering Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and the Indian Ocean. Nairobi is its capital and largest city. Republic of Kenya ( In Detail) (Full size). He returned to England in the 1990sCenturies: 19th century 20th century 21st century Decades: 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 2020s 2030s 2040s Years: Events and trends Computers, technology Explosive growth of the Internet; decrease in the cost of computers and other techn and was knighted in 19951995 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). It has a Golden number of 1, and was the first year of the International Decade of the World's Indigenous People (1995- 2005): http://www. org/culture/indigenous . Events January events Ja. Thesiger is best known for two travel books. Arabian Sands (1959) recounts his travels in the Empty Quarter of Arabia between 1945 and 1950 and describes the vanishing way of life of the Bedouins. A The Marsh Arabs (1964) is an account of the traditional peoples who lived in the marshlands of southern Iraq.
Thisiger took many photographs during his travels and donated his vast collection of 25,000 negatives to the Pitt-Rivers Museum, Oxford.
Thesiger was not greatly enamoured of American culture, about which he had this to say:
"The long-term effect of US culture as it spreads to every nook and cranny in every desert and every mountain valley will be the end of mankind. Our extraordinary greed for material possessions, the ways we go about nurturing that greed, the lack of balance in our lives, and our cultural arrogance will kill us off within a century unless we learn to stop and think. It may be too late."
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