Books 2009: I have here a tome
Sep. 19th, 2009 06:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hawkwing_lbBooks 2009: 75
non-fiction
75. Misha Glenny, The Balkans 1804-1999: Nationalism, War, and the Great Powers, London, 1999.
This is a vast book. More than six hundred pages, it's a clear, lucid narrative treatment of the history of the Balkan 'peninsula' - Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Ottoman Turkey, the region of the former Yugoslavia - from the early 19th century up until the end of the Kosovo bombing campaign. The treatment is both chronological and thematic, and for someone like me, whose ignorance of this region was immense, it was a forgiving introduction.
It has flaws. Because of the length of time and size of the region covered, it sometimes feels scant on detail. After WWII, this problem is exacerbated, and I can't help feeling that Glenny treats the last two decades of the 20th century without sufficient depth at all: the issues arising out of the collapse of the former Yugoslavia might benefit from another decade's worth of perspective.
I can't speak to the quality of the scholarship, but it feels solid, with its handful of biases (mostly against great-power stupidity) out in the open. The first five chapters, which cover history up until 1924, are thorough, and narratively coherent.
Massive book. Lots of information. Took me the last month to read, but it was worth it.
Climbing this afternoon. Very good session. I made it nine metres up a 6C, to the crux - an interesting route, all itty-bitty holds and balance and smearing, but the crux is on an overhung corner, and an almost impossible reach - before falling off. Did two 6As, a 6B - with a pause in the middle - two 5s, ad attempted another 6A, which has an evil corner, and another 6C, from which I fell off two metres up. Evil route.
Then I had lunch with my climbing mate, who is a star of a boy (but, unfortunately, already attached), and came home to fall over. And figure out what history book to read next. WWII resistance history? 17th or 18th century London? The medieval necromancy book? The European Jewish history book? Or, no. Guido Majno's The Healing Hand: Man and Wound in the Ancient World.
non-fiction
75. Misha Glenny, The Balkans 1804-1999: Nationalism, War, and the Great Powers, London, 1999.
This is a vast book. More than six hundred pages, it's a clear, lucid narrative treatment of the history of the Balkan 'peninsula' - Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Ottoman Turkey, the region of the former Yugoslavia - from the early 19th century up until the end of the Kosovo bombing campaign. The treatment is both chronological and thematic, and for someone like me, whose ignorance of this region was immense, it was a forgiving introduction.
It has flaws. Because of the length of time and size of the region covered, it sometimes feels scant on detail. After WWII, this problem is exacerbated, and I can't help feeling that Glenny treats the last two decades of the 20th century without sufficient depth at all: the issues arising out of the collapse of the former Yugoslavia might benefit from another decade's worth of perspective.
I can't speak to the quality of the scholarship, but it feels solid, with its handful of biases (mostly against great-power stupidity) out in the open. The first five chapters, which cover history up until 1924, are thorough, and narratively coherent.
Massive book. Lots of information. Took me the last month to read, but it was worth it.
Climbing this afternoon. Very good session. I made it nine metres up a 6C, to the crux - an interesting route, all itty-bitty holds and balance and smearing, but the crux is on an overhung corner, and an almost impossible reach - before falling off. Did two 6As, a 6B - with a pause in the middle - two 5s, ad attempted another 6A, which has an evil corner, and another 6C, from which I fell off two metres up. Evil route.
Then I had lunch with my climbing mate, who is a star of a boy (but, unfortunately, already attached), and came home to fall over. And figure out what history book to read next. WWII resistance history? 17th or 18th century London? The medieval necromancy book? The European Jewish history book? Or, no. Guido Majno's The Healing Hand: Man and Wound in the Ancient World.
