Customer Reviews

Romania: An Illustrated History (Illustrated Histories)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is an excellent survey of Romanian history, from the prehistoric period to the aftermath of the Communist era. It was the best history book on the subject I've read, and although it doesn't really warrant the term "fully" illustrated, it contains over 100 images, many of which I've never seen published before. Actually, Nicolae Klepper does a lot more than write a national history, as the book is grounded throughout in Romanian art, architecture, music, culture, gastronomy and custom. The author has mixed all this together to produce an extremely readable history book, a must for anyone planning to visit the country.

Nicolae Klepper's "Romania: An Illustrated History" is a great history book for anyone interested in the country.
It's well-written, entertaining, engaging and filled with anecdotes and stories that have historical credibility.
This history book is also a page-turner. Readers will learn a lot about Romania, a country about which very little is known
in the West, outside of its Dracula mythology which is so popular nowadays.

My grandparents were immigrants from Iasi, Romania and I read this book in an attempt to learn more about my cultural background. I was not disappointed! This book provides a full history (although the changes politically occur so frequently they become difficult to follow) with focus on the key figures in politics, as well as in literature. The stories of different regions of Romania - Moldavia, Transylvania, Wallachia etc. - are covered. This book is a very readable and very comprehensive introduction to Romanian history.

This book falls short of being "an illustrated history". It has far too few pictures, maps etc. to achieve that claim. The books treats only few selected subjects extensively however most of the other topics are presented rather briefly. I believe it would have been better to keep everything brief and maybe make this book part of the for Dummies collection something like "Romania for Dummies".

Readers, this is NOT a comprehensive history of Romania, but a summary of Romanian history for those generally unfamiliar with the topic. The narrative is dry, dry, dry... all about dates and locations and names. This battle and that battle, with little context or cultural insight.

It's an easy read, and is perhaps appropriate for travelers interested in the importance of their surroundings, but don't look for penetrating scholarship here.

Very good overview of Romanian history. I recommend it for those interested in this fascinating nation.

The book did present a number of "facts" that weren't available in other Romanian history books I've read (though some were rehashes of the Party line taken by the communist "historians" and "revisionists"). It would have been nice to let us know when some of these facts came from communist-era historians who, it seems, more often than not wrote a form of Romanian mythology instead of a Romanian history. And at times, I was lost while reading ... not sure what timeframe I was in. The book could have used a little more organizational effort. Maybe in a future reprint. Still, there was enough useful information to make the book worthwhile reading.

IT'S GOT ALL THE NECESSARY INFO., ABOUT ROMANIAN HISTORY. NICE PICTURES TOO, HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT!