Chasing the Sea

In 1996, Tom Bissell arrived in Uzbekistan as a young Peace Corps volunteer. His stay lasted only a few months before illness and personal difficulties sent him back to the United States. But something about the country stayed with him, and five years later he returned with a specific destination in mind: the Aral Sea, once one of the largest inland bodies of water on Earth, now drastically reduced by decades of Soviet-era irrigation projects that diverted its feeder rivers to cotton fields.

Bissell's account follows his journey across Uzbekistan alongside a local translator named Rustam. The two encounter run-ins with Uzbek police and pass through landscapes shaped by centuries of conquest, from the campaigns of Genghis Khan through Russian imperial and Soviet rule. Bissell weaves together present-day travel writing and historical narrative, tracing how successive waves of outside power reshaped the region's cities, agriculture, and daily life.

The Aral Sea itself serves as the book's geographic and thematic anchor. What was once a major fishing and shipping waterway had by the early 2000s split into smaller remnants surrounded by exposed seabed. Bissell documents conditions around the shrinking water while also recording the culture, humor, and stubbornness of the people still living nearby.