- Hardcover: 320 pages
- Publisher: Random House UK (July 18 1995)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0224041029
- ISBN-13: 978-0224041027
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 16.2 x 3.2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 540 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #835,765 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
In a colorful, learned and wholly original chronicle, Neal Ascherson shows us the Black Sea and its place in the history of Europe and Asia, from Jason and the Golden Fleece to the fall of Communism and the new world disorder. In his exploration of the myths and realities surrounding this remarkable region, where ancient cultures collided and modern states - Russia, Turkey, Romania, Greece, and Caucasus - mingle, he discovers that the meanings of community, nationhood, and cultural independence are both fierce and disturbingly uncertain.
--This text refers to an alternate
Hardcover
edition.
From Publishers Weekly
If Ascherson (The Polish August) cannot pinpoint precisely where Xenophon's 10,000 soldiers were when, lost on the march home from Persia 2600 years ago, they saw the sea and thought they were home, there is little else he does not tell us in this exotic and seductive history of the Black Sea. From his tales of its peculiar composition?in the depths beneath its upper stream of living water, it is the world's largest dead sea?to those of the myriad of peoples who have inhabited its coasts throughout time, his stories seem more fabulous than the Arabian Nights. Ascherson tells of obscure tribes, familiar heroes, lost languages, current politics and ancient hostilities as poisonous as the depths of the Black Sea itself. Around the once "monstrously abundant" Black Sea, peoples who disliked each other lived together, at best uneasily, at worst at war: Goths, Romans, Germans, Greeks, Turks, Jews, Russians, Persians, Asians and others. "My sense of Black Sea life," concludes Ascherson, "a sad one, is that latent mistrust between different cultures is immortal... not a helpful model for the 'multi-ethnic society' of our hopes and dreams."
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
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.
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.
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