- Paperback
- Publisher: VINTAGE (1996)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0809015935
- ISBN-13: 978-0809015931
- Product Dimensions: 22.9 x 15.3 x 2.2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 345 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #545,815 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
Mary Lee Settle, Los Angeles Times
"A superb, encompassing story of the Black Sea region informed by the double flow, east and west, of waters and populations, cultures and legends."
Nader Mousavizadeh, The New Republic
"One of the most original works on the tangled skein of identity and nationality to have emerged from the recent ruins of nationalism's holy wars . . . Ascherson tells a set of Black Sea stories which together form a unique narrative of 'the interplay of circumstance,' of the hybrids of culture and ethnicity, of the irrepressible links between ages and peoples."
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Travels in a tattered Tartary,
By A Customer
This review is from: BLACK SEA (Paperback)
The style is journalistic which makes it easy and enjoyable to read. The author can tell a story convincingly and he tells many. The subject matter is extremely exotic for an American reader. I have no way to know how reliable this author is as a historian. I am always suspicious of first-person journalistic history. Unlike other readers, I enjoyed the bits about Poland. But I think he is at his best in the lengthy ancient history parts. The best thing I can say about this book is it left me wanting to learn more.
5.0 out of 5 stars
A lovely book,
By
This review is from: BLACK SEA (Paperback)
This is a bold and imaginative look at an area critical to the development of Western culture.Ascherson takes us on a remarkable tour through geography and history, and one comes away with much of the excitement of a real traveller. If the book stumbles on occasion I think it should be forgiven given the complexities that the author is willing to address (and the remarkably few stumbles that he has made. I particularly enjoyed Ascherson taking us more or less up to the present, as the spectre of modern environmental collapse joins the never-ending wars whose origins become more understandable after one has read this book. I wish it were longer, I wish there were more obvious references to take us further once we were done, but this is a real gem even if you never get east of Long Island Sound.
2.0 out of 5 stars
Awkward and Meandering,
This review is from: BLACK SEA (Paperback)
Neal Ascherson's book is a labor of love, not of intellect, and as such it deserves respect. On the back cover of the book, it is said that he argues that "What makes the Black Sea Cultures distinctive is the way their component parts have come together over the millenia to shape unique communities, languages, religions, and trade". If this is the central tenet of Mr. Ascherson's book, he fails miserably. The book neglects such important areas as Constanta while drifting aimlessly through Vilnius, Scotland, Warsaw, and other places. Much of the book, I would say around 45 out of 276 pages, is devoted to the time Adam Mickiewicz, who spent time in Odessa and the surrounding areas. This is fine, if one is interested in the lives of Polish poets, but in the context of a Black Sea culture, the presentation of its link is so very tentative that it leaves the reader feeling like he might as well be reading about Japanese haiku. If there was a point to the case of Adam Mickiewicz, it is lost in the sheer size of its narrative.There are very interesting snippets within the book, some of which are well drawn out, as in the cases of Trabzon and the Lazi, while others are barely touched on, as in the case of a Russian archaeologist sadly in love with a long dead Sarmatian princess and the recent events in Abkhazia. These relevant and interesting asides do not however, deviate from the main ideapresented by Mr. Ascherson himself, namely, that there is little worth mentioning in the Black Sea area than the pontic Greeks. Sadly, Mr. Ascherson works against his own thesis. If it were not for the genuine passion that Mr. Ascherson writes with, this book would be a waste of time. As it stands, its inept intellectual foundations are worth reading simply for the joy with which they are presented.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
Most recent customer reviews |
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
