“…magnificent testimony to an extraordinary experience. To read it is to sense and understand the eternal, mystic fascination the desert has always held for the Westerner.”
— The Harvard Journal

“…a daring journey across the vast Arabian desert from Riyadh in Saudi Arabia to Amman, Jordan, a 1,200 mile camel-back trip which had not been made by Arab or Westerner in half a century – But it is not a pedagogical text. It’s far too fascinating for that.”
— Philadelphia Inquirer

“In “Passing Brave,” the pleasures and vicissitudes of the trip are interspersed with acute observations…Mr. Polk has a fine eye for small distinctions and the corrosion of social change.”
— The New York Times