DAVID H. MOULD

Published by Open Books (St. Louis, MO, November 2020) Paperback $21.95; ebook $9.99

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Free online presentations on travel, history and culture:

Since December 2020, I’ve been Zooming from coast to coast—literally from Massachusetts and Pennsylvania to Oregon—with a 45-minute public library presentation on the meaning of borders, “The Borders of Our Minds.” I begin with maps and cartoons that poke fun at how we view other parts of the US, then move on to the colonial carve-up of Africa, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the most tragic border story of the 20tyh century—the 1947 partition of British India on religious lines. Please contact me if your local library or social or professional group would be interested in “The Borders of Our Minds” or another of my free presentations on travel, history and culture.

Ohio University Press hardback (324 pages), $27.95; available in all e-book formats. Order from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, other online retailers or Swallow Press.

What are borders? Are they simply political and geographical, marked by posts, walls and fences, or should we think of them more broadly? Consider the borders within countries, determined by race, ethnicity, or caste. Borders may be physical and economic, and even perceptual—the borders of our minds. 

In Postcards from the Borderlands, I ramble through a dozen countries in Asia, Southern Africa and Eastern Europe by car, bus, train, shared taxi and ferry, exploring what borders mean to their peoples.

I find topics of interest even in the most ordinary places—an airport departure lounge, a food court, a roadside restaurant, a government office. Every road trip offers a moving window display of landscape features, crops, livestock, houses, churches, temples, mosques, schools, factories, military bases, vehicles. I note what people are selling on the roadside and the markets, the restaurant menu, the indecipherable instructions for the TV remote in his hotel room. What people wear. What they eat. How they talk to each other. The questions they ask me. The questions I ask them. Away from the tourist hotspots, I find that it is often the commonplace that is most fascinating and revealing of culture.  

Selected reviews of Postcards from the Borderlands

“A love letter to the world by an ‘accidental’ travel writer.” Jean Andrews, award-winning video documentary producer and science writer.

“Gracefully interwoven with history and geography, guaranteed to ignite a bit of wanderlust in anyone who shares Mould’s sense of wonder and adventure at our strangely eclectic world of borders.” Natalie Koch, Associate Professor of Geography, Syracuse University, New York

“Mould is an intrepid traveler, often poking his nose in where it isn’t welcome. … a style of travel that requires a certain toughness and resolution, but which rewards Mould, and his readers alike, with secrets invisible to conventional tourists.” Alan Wilkinson, biographer, travel writer and novelist, Durham, UK

David Mould is NOT a mints-on-your-pillow kind of traveler. He steps out of the tourist bubble and explores the action, people and history of back alley markets, crowded neighborhoods and bustling wharves. Lynda Berman, teacher and artist, Athens, Ohio

In the sequel to Postcards from Stanland, I traverse the Indian Ocean—from Madagascar through India and Bangladesh to Indonesia.

It’s an unpredictable journey on battered buses, bush taxis, auto-rickshaws and crowded ferries. From the traffic snarls of Delhi, Dhaka and Jakarta to the rice paddies and ancestral tombs of Madagascar’s Central Highlands. From the ancient kingdom of Hyderabad to India’s so-called chicken neck—the ethnically diverse and under-developed northeast. From the textile factories and rivers of Bangladesh to the beaches of Bali and the province of Aceh—ground zero for the 2004 tsunami.

Along the way, in markets, shops, roadside cafes and classrooms, I meet journalists, professors, students, aid workers, cab drivers, and slum-dwellers to learn how they view their past and future.

Monsoon Postcards offers offbeat, witty and insightful glimpses into four countries linked by history, trade, migration, religion and a colonial legacy. It explores how they confront climate change, urban growth, conflicts over land, water and natural resources, and national and ethnic identity.

Reviews of Monsoon Postcards

“He’s taken crowded ferries, rickshaws and bus taxis to explore way off the tourist beat … (Monsoon Postcards) doesn’t really read like a guidebook, it reads like you’ve got a friend who’s really connected and committed to these cultures and (has) really been active in these cultures. It gives an intimate look at the people and the heritage.” Rick Steves (interview on Travel with Rick Steves, September 2020)

 “Monsoon Postcards is replete with fascinating stories and useful background on far-flung places that most Americans don’t know much about, and Mould, whose expertise is obvious, is an excellent traveling companion. This very good book is at its best when he’s most curious, when he interweaves observations of colorful contemporary life with richly wrought history.“ David Wanczyk, author of Beep: Inside the Unseen World of Baseball for the Blind

“What differentiates this book from most of the travel writing you'll come across - but will always get in one of Mould's works - is that you are not travelling in the company of some tourist, nor a wealthy pensioner indulging a taste for the exotic. He's out there on assignment. He is deeply suspicious of the official line about a country's economic or social progress. And he loves to ask the awkward questions. Despite his status as a scholar … he travels the hard way, seeking out modest, authentically local restaurants and making a point of tracking down bargain priced rooms - with entertaining results. … Mould is an unusual travel writer, and makes demands of his readers. There are lighter, entertaining moments here, but you have to earn the right to enjoy them. You cannot come away from a book like this and not feel that you have learned a significant amount about these large, vibrant, populous, expanding - but rarely discussed - nations.”
Alan Wilkinson, biographer, travel writer and novelist

Across the vast steppe and mountain ranges, to fabled Silk Road cities, the Soviet rust belt and the futuristic architecture of Astana, Kazakhstan’s capital, my offbeat memoir takes you to a remote, diverse and strategically vital region--the former Soviet republics of Central Asia.  That jumble of countries whose names end in -stan: Stanland.   

You'll meet teachers, students, politicians, entrepreneurs, journalists, cab-drivers and market sellers to learn about their history, culture and struggle to survive in the post-Soviet era.  You'll enjoy the stories and landscapes, but be happy you skipped the dangerous flights and bad hotels.

Postcards from Stanland, published in March 2016 by the Ohio University Press. Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, other online retailers or Swallow Press.

Read more travel essays from Central Asia.

Reviews of Postcards from Stanland

“The ideal author to demystify the region and its people.”  Library Journal.

 “A genial travel guide … an academic who doesn’t write like an academic." Kirkus Reviews. 

"Postcards from Stanland is strongest when it discusses the subtleties of national and ethnic identity, the lingering and often still strong political, cultural and personal relationship with Russia, and the way the past affects the present." The Asian Review of Books.

"With its rich depiction of life in Central Asia and authoritative yet accessible style, Postcards deserves a wide audience, from high school students to secretaries of state." Eurasianet.

"Part memoir, part tour guide, part commentary, it is a casual, hybrid book ... Its stylistic flexibility is a strength, allowing Mould to provide snapshots of ordinary life and bite-sized accounts of unusual encounters. His excitement and thrill in discovering a land about which so little is known, where geographical, cultural and even religious worlds collide, is evident." New Eastern Europe.