Customer Reviews

Latvia (Cultures of the World, Set 19)

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The level of ignorance in this book is unbearable! To start with, on the cover of a book which is supposed to talk about Latvia, there is a picture of a girl in a RUSSIAN folk costume! This is like if one would write a book on Native Americans and put cow-boys on the cover! This is an immense insult to the whole Latvian nation. The book is full of such falacies, with pictures that are NOT AT ALL from Latvia (for example there is a picture of Tallinn at one point and they say it is Riga). Many pictures show Russians and the caption describes them as Latvians in folk-costumes or describes what they are doing as Latvian traditions! There is even a picture of a GERMAN dance troup, in little leather pants, and the caption again falsly calls then Latvians. The authors were obviously in Riga during an international folk festival, Baltica or Sudmalinas, and considered everything they saw as Latvian. It is most obvious the authors of this book had no idea what or who they were writing about, and were just trying to plug another hole in their series. DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY! THIS IS NOT WHAT LATVIA IS! ......... I live in Latvia, I have dedicated most of my life to the study of these people and of this country, and I am greatly saddened to see Latvians and Latvia treated with such lack of respect! Not worth the paper it is printed on... not even worth one star! ...................