Black Sea

A visit to one of my favourite bookshops, The Word, in Montreal, provided me with the pleasure of finding Neal Ascherson's Black Sea. The book is travel writing history along the lines of one of the best books I've read: Rebecca West's Black Lamb, Grey Falcon. Ascherson circumnavigates the Black Sea, by bus, taxi, train and car, and along the way we visit ancient Greek, Roman and Scythian civilisations, peoples, along with many others, who have laid claim to these fertile lands over several millenia. The battle for possession of the lands of the Black Sea continues (and possibly always will), making this book, written at the end of the 1990's, as pertinent as ever. In order to understand today, one must understand yesterday. Neal Ascherson, an historian, is an excellent guide.