Customer Reviews

Cracow: An Illustrated History

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I was looking for a short overview, and this book seemed that it would fill the bill. I really wanted to like this book, but I find it too uneven. The cultural history is very enjoyable--but it seems abruptly stuck in between pages devoted to political and military history. Transitions would have been helpful. At times, the book was carelessly written. Too often, I found myself backing up to reread a passage because the date of a particular event was unclear (this is especially true of the first 2 chapters). In terms of content, I expected a fast pace, but I was genuinely surprised at some choices, such as how little was written about World War II and the Holocaust. The illustrations promised by the subtitle were nice, but all black and white, and a bit blurry in a few cases. Finally, I found myself bristling early on at the bias that allowed the author to write sentences like this: "One may admire the energy and talents of the prince [i.e., Mieszko] who was able to extract his tribes from the darkness of paganism, to defend his land, and to pass it down to his son Boleslaw" (p. 10).

This book gives a superficial treatment of the history of this great Polish city. I find no fault in this because that is what I believe was intended. It can serve as a fair introduction to Krakow's past for prospective visitors. The book gives a disproportionate emphasis to cultural history, a reflection, no doubt, of the author's background as a professor of art history. The subtitle "An Illustrated History" would seem to suggest that quality illustrations would be a significant feature of the book. In fact, the black and white illustrations are unremarkable and sometimes of poor quality.

The author resides in Cracow and has served as a museum curator and art history professor: he's in a perfect position to provide a panoramic history of this old Polish city from inception to its current state. Black and white photos pepper a survey which considers its history and cultural roots.