Black Sea (Paperback)

by Neal Ascherson (Author) "ON THE BLACK SEA, my father saw it begin..." (more)
Key Phrases: steppe nomads, Black Sea, Sea of Azov, Soviet Union (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
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 out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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 out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Hill and Wang; 1st Amer. edition (September 30, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809015935
• ISBN-13: 978-0809015931
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #301,376 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A lovely book, March 29, 2001

By	John Anderson (Bar Harbor, ME USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A magnificent book, January 3, 2003

By	Joel Jacobsen (New Mexico USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Part travel book, part history, part natural history, this is a miscellany of fascinating stories about a fascinating region woven together into a single, tight narrative. There's a great deal of learning lightly worn and tremendous technical skill involved in the organization and writing. Those reviewers who criticize it for not conforming to a standard template have a point, but what they're really complaining about is its originality.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply put, a fantastic book, July 15, 2000

By A Customer

Ascherson's style is constantly engaging and provocative. He asks probing questions -- e.g. not only the genetic/ethnic question "who are these people?" but the often ignored further question, "who do these people think they are?". The answers diverge more often than one would expect. His coverage and command of 3000 years of jumbled ethnicities is impressive. My one complaint lies in his treatment of the point that forms his subtitle: that the Black Sea area is the "birthplace of civilization and barbarism". The essential point here is that one cannot participate in both "civilization" and "barbarism" at once. The support for this claim is not sufficient, and indeed seems to run counter to the theme of intermixture that animates the rest of the book. Nonetheless, the book is fantastic and well worth the read. We are deeply in Ascherson's debt for this wonderful work.