| A brilliant biography of place. The complex social, ethnic and extraordinary ecological histories of this region - combined with vivid anecdotes and encounters - provide the background for stimulating reflections
Guardian
|
THE BLACK SEA is at once a homage to an ocean and its shores and an amazingly readable meditation on Eurasian history from the earliest times to the present. It evokes the culture, history and politics of the volatile region which surrounds the Black Sea. Ascherson recalls the world of Herodotus and Aeschylus; Ovid's place of exile on what is now the coast of Romania; the decline and fall of Byzantium; the mysterious fastness of the Chrisian Goths; the Tatar Khanates; the growth of Russian power across the grasslands, and the centuries of war between Ottoman and Russian Empires around the Black Sea; and in our own century the terrors of Stalinism and its fascist enemy, striving for mastery of these endlessly colourful and complex shores. This is a story of Greeks, Scythians, Samatians, Huns, Goths, Turks, Russian and Poles. This is the sea where Europe ended. It is the place where 'barbarism' was born.
|
| |
| A genuinely compelling book: erudite, original, beautifully written
Anne Applebaum Literary Review
|
| A scholarly desktop travel through lost worlds
The Times
|
| Every page is freighted with rich and fascinating detail
Independent
|
| Must certainly be among the year's most memorable non-fiction books
Financial Times
More
Information
Vintage • History • Previous
ISBN: 009952046X
Publication date: 04/10/2007 • 320 pages • B format • EAN: 9780099520467 |
| |
| |
|
|
|
| |
| Buy Black Sea: The Birthplace of Civilisation and Barbarism
and other great titles from rBooks.co.uk. |
