Europe Books

This book is a treasure because all the text is handwritten and the illustrations are fabulous.....there are recipes and a great deal of history & information about Venice. This kind of book will soon be a relic.

If you have ever experienced cichetti in Venice, this book will bring it all back. In addition to the recipes, the illustrations are charming, representative of the real Venice that the average tourist never sees but that those who take the time to learn and love the Serenissima truly cherish.

"Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are" Brillat-Savarin declared. Judging by its cuisine, Venice must surely qualify as the ancient and modern day city of princes and artists. Sally Spector vividly brings to life the importance of Venice as the crucial stepping-stone for cuisine in Italy and Europe in "Venice and Food".

Little did I know that world famous dishes such as risotto, polenta, tiramisu and many other delights originate from Veneto and fair Venice - until I read Sally's superb description of their origins. She elegantly evokes the typical dishes of Venice with such accuracy that I could almost smell the aromas while reading her book - especially her enticing descriptions of the "Cuttlefish stewed in its ink" and "Bacala a la Vicentina". Such descriptions of typical Venetian dishes are beautifully interwoven with their historical origins. Even their essential ingredients are traced back to their roots. Who knew that eggplant, the basis for Melanzane al Funghetto, emanates from China?

An additional bonus and particularly attractive aspect of "Venice and Food" are the illustrations throughout the book. They are done by Sally herself who is a talented artist. Moreover, the whole book is written in her own elegant handwriting - a unique and superbly pleasing feature.

In sum, from the minute I picked up this book, I could not put it down until the next day - the first two days of my visit to Venice. It served as a magnificent introduction to Venice - not only the city of romance but also certainly of history and cuisine.

"Venice and Food" is a must read for any food enthusiast!

I purchased this book soon after it came out. I found it at the wonderful Kepler's bookstore in Menlo Park, California in among the cookbooks. Which makes sense, because, in part Venice & Food is a cookbook. But Venice & Food is two other thing as well: a book about Venice and its history and an art book of Ms. Spector's remarkable drawings of Venice. What is also remarkable about this book is that it is not typeset. The book is entirely written in Ms. Spector's hand printed text and the illustrations are annotated with her script.

Ms. Spector is a wonderful artist and her drawings of Venice are beautiful. The drawings illustrate essays on topics ranging from where Venice gets its fresh water to the history of corn in Europe and Venice. Since this is a cookbook, Ms. Spector also writes about the history of food and cooking in Venice, including a few accounts of modern food. In writing about food and cooking through history, Ms. Spector comments that for the vast majority of people through most of human history, the concern was not about the sensuality of food, but simply having a full stomach.

The beautiful artwork, the observations about Venice, its history and its food are what make this book a treasure. I am sad to say that I read the book cover to cover and did not find a recipe that I wanted to make. Although I will not be using this as a cookbook, I will always treasure the book for its beauty.

Just another rave review for this beautiful book. If you love Venice, you will love this book. If you know anyone who loves Venice, get them this book as a gift. Sally Spector knows Venice and obviously loves the city. Her drawings and history of details behind the food and recipes is a joy to read and to look at. If you have been to Venice, this book will take you back and get you looking forward to your next trip. In the meantime, you can savor the delicious recipes and the warmth of Venice and Food....

Venice for Pleasure is an off the beaten path sort of guide, filled with anecdotes, character sketches, and historic photos. Links takes his readers beyond the famous facades and brings the "theme park" to life. Fun to use then to keep and reread for reminiscence afterwards.

Terrific read for those intent on seeing the Venice that lies beyond Piazza San Marco and the Rialto Bridge. Whether you follow the author's routes on his strolls thru the sestieres, or just use his walks as a source of inspiration (as we did), this book is an indispensable addition to the library of anyone planning a trip to Venice. Thanks in large measure to encouragement offered by this book, we ventured into some of the nooks and crannys of this amazing city... we'll see St Mark's Basilica next time we go.

What a strange and wonderful little book!

Venice for Pleasure is essentially four walking tours told in a charmingly conversational style by an author who is clearly in love with Venice. Stopping in a Venetian cafe to read a passage is like having a friend leaning over your shoulder to recall the local history and gossip, point out fascinating details that you probably wouldn't have noticed, and make you smile with his dry wit.

We did all four walking tours and thoroughly enjoyed Links' companionship along the way; I can't recommend it highly enough if exploring Venice on foot is your aim. We also found the directions infallible.

Please note that this isn't a conventional guidebook, so you shouldn't expect logistical information.

If there is no such thing for you as having too much information, then think about buying this book. This book has walking itineraries including places to stop for rest and refreshment, and wonderful details on things to look at while you are walking and even while you are sitting down. This book is not useful for restaurants or hotels or hours that sites are open. Includes history, and comments on Venice from famous writers of the past like John Ruskin. It is to be savored.

Fantastic Book!!! I bought this for my wife as a memento of our 25th Anniversary trip to Venice. It was perfect. I highly recommend it to any armchair traveler who wants to "visit" the world's most romantic city. David

I received the book in very good condition and came very well wrapped and quickly. I am very satisfied with it.

Walks Through Lost Paris: A Journey Into the Heart of Historic Paris

This is a wonderful book, except for one thing. It is so small that the maps are almost unreadable, and the print is not so easy to read either. I've been to Paris twice and walked through all four areas in the book before, but the book opened my eyes to a lot of history and details I'm looking forward to seeing first hand. I am taking it to Paris in a couple weeks, and I'm looking forward to the walks, but I'm going to have to blow up the maps so I can read them without a magnifying glass. This book would be far more enjoyable in a larger format.

If you love Paris (and who doesn't?) you'll appreciate this book. It takes us over well-trod streets, past ancient buildings, and brings them alive by examining their past. Atget documented Paris as it was; this book predates that.

Beautifully produced book with superb use of 19th century & current photos to show changes in Paris locations pre & post Haussmann. A great read for anyone who loves & knows Paris, and doubles as an "advanced" and specialized walking guide for those lucky enough to be on site.

Whether one takes the recommended walks or just reads the words, this is a great little book, full of wonderful then and now photos (I especially like the photo of the people in the boat on Rue Jacob during the flood of 1910--see the hats!) and interesting discussions of how Paris came to be what we see today, how sections of the city were saved by those who loved them, and how other sectors were changed and updated. I have a number of walks-around-Paris books, some written for Parisians themselves, and I think this is the best and most interesting. It entertained my husband when he recently spent a week in the hospital. It is not especially touristic, and not a book for those dropping in for a day or two to see the highlights of Paris. This is a book to wallow around in. I found the English version first, but will look for the French, as I'm suspicious of translations.

An excellent book with a different perspective. It is not only well written but beautifully printed and bound. A joy to read and to walk in the very steps of these two historic and romantic personalities. Take it along on your next trip to Paris.Floyd McRae, Napoleonic Alliance, International Napoleonic Society.

Delightful, informative, exciting. Great for a sophisticated traveler -- a perfect gift for any tourist planning a trip to Paris -- and also a stimulating, fun read. I loved it.

Diana Reid Haig's beautiful, well researched book is invaluable on two levels; as a work of art and as a practical walking guide. Walks Through Napoleon and Josephine's Paris will interest Francophiles as well as those who love history and art. This extremely readable history of Napoleon and Josephine chronicles the rise and fall of the doomed couple--a history which is also inexorably linked with the history of France and the French Revolution.

A blend of words and art, Haig's book is wonderful to page through, but is also a great read. I recommend this work to both armchair travelers and frequent visitors to Paris. This book is a brilliant new way to see and enjoy Paris.

I had the delightful privilege of hearing Mme. Haig read from her book at the French Institute in New York which in turn, plunged me into an exuberant frenzy to learn as much as I could about Napoleon and even more so - Josephine. Mme. Haig's writing comes from a genuine passion about her subjects and is wonderfully researched, with fascinating detail. Should you be travelling to Paris with a teenager, this book could ignite a passion in them as well about history before Britney Spears' first marriage.

Diana Reid Haig has produced a delightful book that is at once fascinating and useful. She tells short anecdotal stories of Napoleon and Josephine and their times while showing us beautiful photographs of the places they would have known and then showing us how to find them. No one who is interested in Napoleon should ever visit Paris without consulting this book, and even those who will never set foot on the Champs-Élysées will enjoy thumbing through its pages and reading Haig's well-written little vignettes of one of history's most famous love stories.

The book is organized into four "walks," which generally correspond to Napoleon's early career and meeting of Josephine, life as First Consul, the coronation, and the return of Napoleon's body in 1840. To these she adds a tour of Fontainebleau and Malmaison, two places where Napoleon and Josephine lived. Each walk comes with a map that clearly shows the major places she discusses as well as shops and other areas of interest. The maps are easy to follow and a dotted line traces her suggested route. A map of Paris showing where in the greater scheme of things these maps fit would have been useful, but any visit to Paris will be enhanced by this book.

One of Haig's most endearing qualities as a writer is her ability to provide interesting and useful information in a way that both informs and entertains. Throughout her book we hear of some of the standard discussions of Napoleon and Josephine, such as her affair and their near breakup after his Egyptian campaign. But we also are given brief glimpses into their daily lives and their relationship with the buildings that we can see on her tours. Haig also includes interesting "side boxes" on topics the basics of which are common knowledge but the unknown details of which can be quite interesting. For example, we all know of Napoleon's famous hat, but from Haig we learn that he ordered four a year as First Consul and later had at least fifty ordered from his hatter, Poupard, who charged exorbitant rates. Indeed, Haig presents enough interesting history that a scholarly reader is left wishing she had provided references.

This wonderful little book is like none other that I have seen. It is beautifully produced and well written. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in seeing and understanding Napoleon and Josephine's Paris.

J. David Markham, Author
Napoleon's Road to Glory: Triumphs, Defeats and Immortality
Imperial Glory: The Bulletins of Napoleon's Grande Armée

The war in the Pacific was a bloody confrontation for the resolution of opponents and the straining combat environment. Flying under such pressure was undeniably a great feat and sustaining a proper level of operational capability was a superb example of airmanship. In this book all aspects of air combat come alive with the intriguing personal tales of the pilots who served in this theater. Each account reveals the insight of lifestyle, tactics and training that led to amazing results in aerial battles. From their personal experience, it is possible to catch the feelings the pilots had about their machinery, climate and combat methods before actually flying the missions in their harsh frontline.

Beatifully written, this volume is really easy to read, even if some accounts disclose a predilection to be stylish or glorifying from time to time.

In Aces Against Japan, military historian Eric Hammel provides the reader with riveting first-person accounts from thirty-nine American fighter aces who fought their way across the bloody skies of the Pacific and East Asia from December 7, 1941 through the final air battles over Japan in August 1945. An effective interviewer, Hammel presents fascinating and informative air-combat tales and anecdotes from the men who were their. Vivid, superbly presented, Aces Against Japan is enthusiastically recommended reading for all military buffs and a very welcome addition to any World War II history collection or reading list.

Reading about the Pacific airwar in the recent novel, The Triumph and the Glory, sparked an eager interest in me in the topic and prompted me to order this book. I found "Aces Against Japan" great reading, filled with gripping accounts of action from the men who fought the air war against Imperial Japan. If you are interested in WWII aerial combat this book is for you!

A truly great book. I recommend it for anyone, not just history enthusiasts. The first hand accounts are well written and bring the stories to life. Equally as good is Hammel's other book, ACES AGAINST GERMANY.

This book is about the many pilots that fought for the US navy in the pacific Theatre.Many of which were very young but would die for their country!It talkes about their experiences of there first kills and becoming aces, shootings down zeros,and betty bombers and imperial japenses crusiers of all sorts in the pacific. Pilots talk about their experiencs in the battles of Pearl harbor,Midway,Port Moresby,Guadalcanal,Rabaul,Lyete Gulf,and Okinawa. Fly with 1st Lt. Jim Swett as he nails 7 bandits out of the sky with his F4F wildcat. Fly with pilots in their warhawks,wildcats,lightnings,Thunderbolts,mustangs,and corsairs agaist the 1 of the best navys in the world.Another book i want is Aces against germany but they dont print it anymore!Buy ACES AGAINST GERMANY and listen to the stories told by are heroes of ww2.The men that kept us free,the men that kept the axis from taking over the world,the men that died for us! Now id like to salute all the men that died for us in ww2 thanx guys! -HEAVEN BELONGED TO GOD.THE SKY BELONGED TO AMERICA'S ACES.

This calendar is a must have for Ansel Adams fans and anyone who enjoys displaying and viewing great outdoors B&W photography. I highly recommend this item.

This is an outstandong calendar that my daughter asks for and gets from us at Christmas. Over the past two years our UK book stores stopped stocking it. That's where Amazon comes in..........ordered, and delivered well before estimated delivery time from America via Germany AND even with post & packing charges it was cheaper than walking into a book store in the UK. This is where buying on the web with reputable companies score....door to door service.

Every year at Christmas time we give an Adams wall calendar to a daughter who is a wonderful photographer and a nature lover. One year we decided maybe it was time to stop doing that, and we heard about it! I'm glad you carry it, because it is not as easily available elsewhere as it used to be.

I've always had a great appreciation for Black & White photography. Of all the Famous B&W photographers Ansel Adams is my favorite. The photographs, as always with these calendars, are breathtaking. One of the nicest things about this calendar is that after the year is over the images are of high enough quality to frame and hang on the wall. You won't regret this purchase!

I purchase this wall calendar every year. Ansel Adams is my favorite black/white photographer and I enjoy photography myself, as a hobby- The photos are stunning. I look forward to the beginning of each month so I can see what the next masterpiece will look like. There is plenty of room to fill in all your apppointments-All-around great calendar!

This large, high quality book is an exhaustive reference of maps and related commentary regarding the various stages of Armenian history. It is a must have companion for any aspiring Armenologist and a nice coffee table book for all Armenian families.

This is an amazing atlas presenting in-depth covering of the long and turbulent history of Armenia. There are numerous publications on Armenian history, but they either contain plain maps, or plan text. This one not only presents an enormous number of extremely valuable and rare historical maps covering about three thousand years' history, but also presents in a very reader-friendly style unbiased historical facts associated with every single map. More than that, it presents invaluable statistical information, such as the population by regions. It also presents very intriguing architectural data. One of invaluable features of the book is the coverage of the Armenian genocide and the first republic.
This is more than a book - it is a great treasure that anyone interested in history in general and Armenian history in particular MUST have.

A comprehensive collection of cartographic information related to Armenian History and Geography. The acompaning text is also very informative.

Although it is published as an atlas, through both historical and contemporary maps, diagrams and text, Robert Hewsen manages to trace all the important cultural, military, geopolitical and geographic influences and changes within Anatolia and the Caucasian region. For those interested in Armenian, Roman, Persian and Ottoman/Trukish history, it serves as a comprehesive, yet easy source, for both scholar and non-scholar alike.

Robert Hewsen's "Armenia A Historical Atlas" is a true masterpiece. This atlas contains 278 detailed color maps that chronicle Armenian history from antiquity to the present day. The maps are meticulously accurate, very detailed and visually appealing. They also show precise topographic, political, religious, onomastic and historical details. There is a mixture of many regional maps, detailed local maps, city maps and even building plans.

Each map is accompanied by a very detailed overview of the time period and theme covered in the map. The work is a remarkable feat of research, drawing on countless primary and secondary sources in numerous languages.

The real strength of this work is that it chronicles, in both visual and written form, Armenian history from generation to generation over millennia. As such, this book is an invaluable resource for all histories that coincide with Armenian history, especially the regions of regions of Eastern Anatolia, Western Iran and the Caucasus. You will find numerous historical details about Byzantine, Persian, Eastern Christian, Seljuk, Georgian, Ottoman, Russian and Soviet histories not easily found in other historical atlases.

I highly recommend this atlas to anyone interested in Armenian history or in the history of this region.

you can feel the love that went into the research for this beautiful book; the stories and pictures flow so easily; i could almost see ms potter and her mr hellis puttering in a garden or floating in a boat across some breathtaking bit of water. well done.

This book was a real pleasure to read very slowly. It is a room by room description of Beatrix Potter's Hill Top farm house and includes the gardens. Beatrix started journaling about what she loved in a home from the time she was nine years old and this house is the cummulation of a life long interest in interior and exterior design theory. She fit in with the whole Arts and Crafts movement of the time. The house was deliberatly her largest artistic creation, she didn't actually live there very much. Again, it is a beautiful book and has many fasinating details about Beatrix Potter, her family and her times.

Being the big fan of Beatrox Potter, the woman and not just the author I was overjoyed to get this as a gift recently and the book is a treat for the eyes. While it has pages and pages of stunning photographs as well as her own water colours, it is the text and complete history of her farms that is awesome.

That and reading and seeing photographs of her as well as her farms and reading why she bought each property and the breeds of sheep she raised was of special interest to me. I loved seeing the inside of her farms, although I had seen the inside of a few, via the National Land Trust to whom she left her properties.

I loved the photographs of Beatrix and how she was so eccentric, kind yet firm and a woman ahead of her time. And it was nice to read that she was a true homestead style woman who had the waste not want not mentality, as well as a deep appreciation for quality and hated to see old bridges torn down for modern ones, although she was quick to make sure the stones and plants, wood and other things being discarded by some, didn't end up in some dump area but were recycled into new walls and buildings and plantings on her property.

This is a book a cottage gardener, keeper of sheep. painters, stone masons and anyone who loves working with their hands will love. As well as sincere environmentalists and organic gardeners and farmers.

A gorgeous collection of photos and information
about one of my most favorite children story writers.

What a beautiful book. Clear, inviting photos, and interesting information. A book you will enjoy reading and sharing.

Felice Vinci wrote this fascinating book in Italian in 1995 (he is a nuclear engineer and classics buff), and the book was translated into English and into Russian in 2006. The translations have led to growing interest in Vinci's work.

Vinci's main thesis is that The Illiad and the Odyssey of Homer took place in the Baltic, not the Mediterranean. Reading his book, and an excellent commentary by William Mullen of Bard College in the current issue of "Culture + Travel", makes re-reading these two old favorites a mind blowing experience.

Suspend your disbelief for a few paragraphs. Archeologists agree that invaders from the north founded the Greek Mycenaean kingdoms in the 16th century B.C.E. Linguists believe that languages from Greek to Sanskrit belong to an ancestral group called the Proto-Indo-Europeans that migrated throughout Europe before the second millennium B.C.E. Climatologists believe that 4500 years ago the planet as a whole was 4 degrees Celsius warmer, the so-called Post-Glacial Climatic Optimum.

What is not agreed is Vinci's claims that these groups "re-mapped" their new homes in the Mediterranean using the place names of the Baltic in their new homes, much as the Dutch and then the English named a certain island "New Amsterdam" and then "New York." By Mullen's count, "out of 390 place names in the Homeric epics, Vinci finds 321 northern counterparts in the text, individually and in relation to each other."

Homer often mentions snow and fog, his characters wore heavy clothes, the main battle in the "Iliad" takes place between two noons, separated by a starless "white night". Climate changes over the centuries, but were there white nights in Turkey many centuries ago?

In Vinci's approach, Troy is Toija in Finland, a town whose topography matches Homer's description precisely, including a long ridge that overlooks the plain "like an eyebrow". The Turkish name for the standard tourist destination is called "Hissarlik" -- not much like "Troy" -- and is not located on a "boundless sea" as Homer described it.

A puzzling part of the "Odyssey" is Homer's description of Atlas holding up "the great pillars that sustain Earth and Heaven." Neither the Rock of Gibraltar nor the Atlas Mountains in Africa look much like pillars. But two of the Faroe Islands, Kunoy and Kalsoy, are parallel slabs of stone, with only a narrow sea lane between them.

Home for Odysseus was Ithaca, which Homer describes as a low, flat island and the westernmost of four islands. In Greece, Ithaca is hilly and the westernmost of three islands, not four. West of Copenhagen, however, there is a low lying, rainy island, the fourth and westernmost of a small chain, fitting Athena's description: "Here is grain surpassing even a god's telling ... All kinds of woods, and watering places, the year round."

So, what's the truth? Well, we know that Homer was probably not one person but actually a series of story tellers, singing and re-telling their great tales over many centuries and in many different places. We probably will never know for sure if the tales could have taken place in the Baltic, but Vinci's theories add a wonderful gloss to both stories. Is it impossible that the invaders from the north carried both their singers and their tales south to the Mediterranean?

Read Vinci's book and then re-read Homer's two great classics with a new appreciation.


Robert C. Ross 2008

Felice Vinci
The Baltic Origins of Homer's
Epic Tales:
The Iliad, the Odyssey, and
The Migration of Myth
(Inner Traditions, Rochester, VT) 2006
xiii+370 pages
ISBN 1-59477-052-2 (pb)

Critiqued by Frederic Jueneman

As perhaps an interesting preliminary aside, Roman author Felice Vinci's original 1995 book in Italian, Omero nel Baltico ("Homer in the Baltic"), was highlighted several years ago with a précis of his study of Homer's epic Iliad and Odyssey. Originally it was met with some skepticism; but hopefully since, it has captured the notice of some attentive classical scholars, who had no preconceived notions of their own, to further the study of Homeric lore. Now, finally, the full-scale English language version is widely available for critical analysis. (A contemporaneous Russian edition has also been recently published.) And, it might be amusingly mentioned that Vinci's popularity has since risen in Scandinavia, as these peoples were given a revitalized legacy, but his esteem has proportionately declined in Greece, since he has uncharitably taken away the cherished and hoary heritage of Homer from Aegean waters and moved it en masse into the Baltic. Notwithstanding, Vinci has done his homework remarkably well, as his extensive knowledge of Homeric Greek, as well as of ancient history and literature, comes through clearly.

The Foreword to this edition is by Joscelyn Godwin of Colgate University, a scholar who might be termed a student of esotericology (study of the occult), but who wouldn't be among my first choices as a preface author. Yet, his extensive knowledge of obscure esoteric practices and cabalistic lore from around the world puts him in a somewhat unique position. Such antiquated if otherwise unorthodox lore places almost all significant mythic events near the Pole, a premise that highlights the basic hypothesis of Vinci's repositioning of Homer's epic in the north.

This reviewer's only problem--albeit a minor one--is that Vinci has opted for literal, historic names and faces on what may otherwise be universal symbolisms, if not generic mythic themes. in Homer's epics, despite the fact that extensive Achaean and Trojan genealogies are sprinkled throughout these poems. Moreover, having been involved during an early editing process, this reviewer may also seem to have a conflict of interest in writing this critique; however, to be sure, there aren't many so intimately acquainted with Vinci's effort.

It should be said about both the Iliad and Odyssey, despite their heroic premise--if the discerning student of Homer hadn't otherwise noticed it--they are essentially Travelogues par excellence. But, even more than this, the Iliad is a compendium of peoples and cultures from various ports-of-call around the Baltic world, as outlined in exquisite detail in Book 2, "Catalogue of Ships," while the Odyssey itself more fancifully outlines economic trade routes taken by these intrepid Nordic seafarers, under the rubric of Ulysses' adventures, along with the constant dangers and other vicissitudes of wind, weather, and shoals that can trouble courageous mariners.

Homer seems to have efficiently used the Trojan War as the pivotal epic theme to highlight Baltic civilization, culture, and concomitant malignant unrest during the Sub-Boreal climatic plunge in the early second millennium BC, with the resulting armed conflicts for more habitable and sustainable territories, coupled with the ongoing quest for less frigid environments. These hostilities, coupled with the encroaching freeze, inexorably contributed to the eventual disintegration of Nordic society that finally impelled both their southward and their southeastward migrations to more temperate seaport climes. And this, in turn, was perhaps exacerbated by the eruption of Thera in the Mediterranean circa 1627 BC, as determined by dendrochronology (tree-ring dating). However, apparently not everyone did leave this increasingly Frigid Zone, as hardier peoples did remain in the northern climes to eke out an existence and evoke further Nordic legends and tales. Homer's epic is perhaps the only surviving classic from that epoch, as others may well have been lost. And even here, there seems to be the ghost of two Homers, as the Iliad and Odyssey are each stylistically distinct and dissimilar, as if they were orally relayed and later penned by different authors.

The literary artifact of the quest for the affections of Helen of Troy emphasizes one aspect of their regional cultural and moral values, but on this Vinci is silent except to comment that the heroine Sita is similarly abducted from her betrothed Rama in the Hindu Ramayana.

Further, these so-called "trade routes' in the Odyssey, are both a mnemonic of those sea passages and a verbal itinerary of what would otherwise have been forgotten and hence lost by these migrants. The superlative detail in Homer's epic lyrics are therefore not merely poetic hyperbole, but arrows-in-time of Mediterranean and Anatolian, if not, according to Vinci, Aryan, heritage, as well as tangible, albeit arcane literary directions to their former locales. That they were indeed lost and forgotten, it is our present task to remember and find them once again.

Vinci's reconstruction used the Greek biographer and moralist Plutarch (46-120 AD) as his initial guide for the identification of the Homeric Isle of Calypso, Ogygia (Stóra Dímun), off the coast of Norway in the Faeroe Islands. And, that these sea route mnemonics had also been forgotten and lost is noted in the writings of the geographer Strabo (63 BC-24 AD) and earlier historian Thucydides (471-400 BC), who thought Homer was a good storyteller but a rather poor geographer, where many Homeric islands are either missing or misplaced in the Mediterranean. Vinci attempts to amend these ancient erroneous impressions, as well as those of contemporary scholarship, with what might be termed geographical, morphological, and literary archeology. The actual physical digging and future confirmation of his arguments he would leave to the field archeologists. But, he has also left a pile of detritus for the philologists and historians, as there are still many linguistic and chronological problems.

One never knows what one might find while unearthing literary relics. Fossils are where you find them, as every paleontologist will acknowledge. Some plots of ground are more fertile than others, but the trick is in finding them. Hellenic authors and their present-day progeny have looked in vain in the Aegean for the likes of Homer's "long isle" Dulichium, "sandy" Pylos, Achilles' home of Phthia, and "white-cliffed" Cranae. They never had really existed in Mediterranean waters. But, they all have place in the Scandinavian world, which is where Vinci has discovered such vestiges of literary fossils, not only in Homer but also Saxo Grammaticus and the Icelandic Eddas, and parts of the Finnish epic Kalevala, among others.

The Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus (1150-1220) recorded parallel legends in his Gesta Danorum (Danish History), which dovetail Nordic legends in many respects with the Homeric epics, where occasionally even the names look familiar. In like manner, both the poetic Elder Edda (12th century) and the Younger Edda, penned by Snorri Sturluson in the following 13th century, have such corresponding themes where Nordic gods play the analogous roles of the Homeric heroes. One wonders if Saxo and Snorri previously had read Homer, or if these were from independently homomorphic tales. In the Kalevala, Väinämöinen has a leg scar comparable to Ulysses' childhood injury; and similarly, one might compare the godlike smithys from the far north, notably Ilmarinen and Hephaestus, who fashioned armor for their respective Finnish and Achaean heroes. Moreover, such oblique references appear throughout Indo-European mythic literature, much further afield than either the Mediterranean or the Baltic.

Where Saxo outlines the history of the Danes in lower Scandinavia, principally Denmark, Homer--by way of Vinci--describes the rest of the Baltic world, although Saxo does look eastward and places the Hellespont in the Gulf of Finland, far from the Dardanelles in northwestern Turkey, which is most unlike the sea that Homer called "wide" and "boundless."

Vinci's repeated excursions into etymological concordances are fascinating, but not fully convincing at least until further evidence is forthcoming, despite his caveat that "considerations based on geography and climate are far more reliable than similarities in place-names." Nevertheless, the poetic clustering of Homeric homonyms in names and places from both the Mediterranean and the Baltic worlds frames a persuasive argument.

His occasional references to the loss of the linguistic element "v"--the digamma--from ancient pre-Homeric Greek could well be such an etymological fossil and a potential linguistic springboard for additional appraisal. (The digamma had fallen into disuse except for an Aeolian dialect.) For example, Livy records the flight of Antenor with his Eneti allies after the fall of Troy, which might account for the Etrurian founding of a Veneti seaport colony later known to us as Venice, although the recorded history of this city just dates from our own 5th century. Similarly, the missing digammate prefix in the word "Achaean" would make "Vachaean" sound like "Viking." It's unfortunate that Vinci's protracted discussion of the linguistic significance of the digamma was edited out of this edition. However, there's lots more room for further philological study, to add to what has already been done long before Vinci came on the scene.

It has also come to the attention of this reviewer that Etruscan tombs in northern Italy frequently commemorate themes from both the "Trojan War" and the "Seven Against Thebes," an otherwise unaccountable provenance unless both ancient Troy and Thebes were originally located in the north. Interestingly, to confound this puzzle further, Vinci adds, "Thebes was not an Achaean city and did not take part in the Trojan War." This makes one wonder why the Etruscans venerated such funereal encomiums if their forebears did not participate in the Achaean-Trojan conflict. Even so, Etrurian origins are thought by received wisdom to be formerly from northern regions. In addition, Vinci does identify today's quaint Finnish village of Toija near the coast in southwestern Finland as being the putative site of the mythical Ilium of Homer, far from the Anatolian site at Hissarlik on the shores of Turkey in the eastern Mediterranean that was uncovered by Heinrich Schliemann circa 1873.

In the Odyssey Homer describes an immense "flowing away" (ápsoros) current plowing silently through the ocean as Potamós Okeanós (literally "Blue River") that has all the earmarks of the Atlantic Gulf Stream, of which we presumably attribute its discovery to Benjamin Franklin circa 1770. The 8th century BC poet Hesiod had also remarked on it, which leads one to think that much of Homer has been swept aside by scholarly oversight when their attention is more-or-less rigidly confined to the Mediterranean. It also augurs for an Atlantic voyage of Ulysses to more distant and exotic ports-of-call, which may well have been as far west as Iceland, Greenland, or--heavens forfend!--the eastern seaboard of the Americas.

The vast plains of Homer's world do not reside in the rocky crags and spires of the Aegean; the terrain of the Iliad speaks of rolling hills and secluded seaports, specifically the harborage of Homeric Sparta, which otherwise is located far inland in the Mediterranean Peloponnese. Nor, for that matter, the non-Greek Homeric sources of tin, copper, iron, and particularly amber, although scattered artifacts have been found at Mycenae and other Mediterranean sites, despite similarly scattered ore sites in Anatolia, in and around the Black Sea. In the northland there are ancient copper mines in the Shetlands and tin ore in Cornwall, with immense iron deposits found in northern Sweden on the Gulf of Bothnia, and of course amber in areas rich in conifers. Magnetite from Sweden may have been the origin of ancient but crude compasses, which guided these daring ancient mariners through foggy seas across the ocean to Iceland, Greenland, and even the Americas for exploration and additional resources. Until the collapse of the warm Atlantic climatic phase prior to the second millennium, such seafaring across an oceanic expanse would certainly be possible, if not probable, during more temperate meteorological conditions.

So too, found in the far north, are prized gold and silver, which adorned the breastplates and shields fashioned by the gods for the Achaeans, perhaps along with Plato's celebrated orichalcum. Some of the world's finest gold, as well as silver, are found in Lapland in the northern extreme of Finland. Curiously, the precious orichalcum of Plato's fabulous Atlantis may turn out to be the platinum mined in the Urals. But, these minerals are less easily accessed today as they might have been during a pre-glacial Boreal phase--relatively ice free--several thousand years ago.

The climate of the northland underlies the Odyssey portrayals of "close-fitting" garments and long tunics, wrapped around "like the peel on a dry onion." And, in the Iliad, we similarly read of "thick furs" and "thick cloaks and blankets." All such descriptions are of Bronze Age clothing as found in Scandinavian burial tumuli, even as to the golden shoulder buckle worn by Ulysses to fasten his cloak.

Wind, fog, and rain also afflicted the combatants during the remarkably short season of the Achaean-Trojan skirmishes, where often one warrior could not see another. It should be said that the Iliad itself actually describes just a month-long finale of the ten-year hostilities over what appears to be an ongoing turf war, disregarding the overlay of Homer's plot theme in the quest for the satisfaction of honor and Helen's return to the court of Agamemnon. The constant references to inclement weather, and even the occasional allusions to ice and snow, all seem to denote unrelenting characteristic atmospheric conditions in the northlands. It also appears to this reviewer that the Achaeans wanted to once-and-for-all bring the economic dominance of Troy to its knees. In fact, the artifice of the "Trojan Horse," described only in the more imaginative Odyssey, may be an early description of a siege engine to breech the timbered walls of Troy.

The long winter nights of the polar climes north of the Arctic Circle do not rule out anything significant in the underlying themes of myth, where, for example, Persephone spends her half-year in the gloomy company of her husband Hades, brother of Zeus. Or, where Ulysses drifts northward with the Potamós Okeanós from the Isle of Circe to the Cimmerian land of Styx to consult with the ghost of Tiresias, the erstwhile king of Thebes. During Arctic winters we have both the light of the Moon during its periodic phases to illuminate the tundra, and the sometimes-spectacular aurora borealis as the porphyréen îrin (colored arch) spread across the heavens by Zeus for the aesthetic benefit of mortals. Nightfall in the Arctic does not mean it precludes activity, mythological or actual.

But, when the Sun's light finally begins to gradually reappear through the recurring twilights of spring, Homer speaks of "revolving dawns" that can only be observed in the far north, not in continental Europe nor the Mediterranean. Furthermore, the curious hapax legomenon of Homer--amphilyke nyx--is a linguistic fossil referring to the "dimly-lit night" during which Achaeans and Trojans fought during the day and throughout the Arctic dusk and into the following day, a phenomenon only experienced during early or late summer months in far northern climes. In another instance, King Nestor of Pylos recommended that campfires should surround each Achaean encampment; but, without any further clarification by Homer, most scholars assume that this advice was for discouraging potential Trojan infiltrators or from a surprise attack. However, according to classicist Alberto DiPippo of Univ. of Santa Clara, since there's no dark nighttime per se in far northern summers, such well-placed campfires would more realistically discourage the abominable insect infestation that usually plague such humid polar regions during the summertime.

This brief critique is but a small part of what Vinci has laid out for the reader, since we haven't even touched on what these ancients ate or drank, or did for their amusement, or even as to the ultimate migration of the Achaeans as ancestors of the Mycenaeans and later Hellenes, and who may even have been the personification of the fabled Peoples of the Sea.

And finally, to indulge in a reminiscence: While editing the first draft of this book some years ago, it was then presciently written "...this is a Homeric world that was once almost irretrievably lost, but at long last has now been found where it has always been."

For those who have actually read and pondered the Homeric sagas, many difficulties present themselves in trying to visualize the battles, the geography and the scenery when compared to the eastern areas of the Mediterranean Sea. In this book, Felice Vinci proposes and very well defends the seemingly outrageous idea that the events described in the epics actually transpired in the Baltic Sea. He contends that these events took place at the end of a particularly warm period, and with the dropping temperatures, the actors of the Homeric dramas fled south and occupied the warmer Mediterranean. Transposing the names of their former cities to their new homes, once things settled down, the epics were put to writing.

This is a bold and exciting assertion. This book explains and defends the premise very well. I strongly encourage people to read and ponder. It is a rare thing when something this bold and of this scope can be conceived and propounded with such dignity and vigor.

Put down whatever you are reading today and get this book!

Making comparisons of climate and geography, including place names, between Homer's ancient Greek classics and the Baltic Sea coastal areas, Vinci engages in intriguing, fascinating, but also well-substantiated speculation on the bases of Homer's works. Eons ago when the epics originated, climate was warmer in the Baltic region. Though it was not as warm as it commonly is in the eastern Mediterranean lands including Greece, Vinci finds references to this one-time warmer Northern European climate in the Odyssey, for example, with its frequent mention of cooler, damper weather often forming mist. Ulysses, the main character of the Odyssey, is more like a Viking seafarer than a typical Greek sailor. Vinci even finds many references in the Baltic region to the Trojan War poetically recorded in Homer's "Iliad." The link between the Baltic region and ancient Greece is strengthened, though not confirmed, by the migrations of Northern peoples to areas of Asia Minor. As Vinci recognizes, "further archaeological corroboration" by experts in different fields would be necessary to confirm his theory. But in pursuing it, this work covers many little-known but interesting and colorful aspects of the ancient European world and also enhances appreciation of the literary style and the cultural material and sources of the works.

It is a curious fact that the geographical descriptions furnished in Homer's Iliad (the story of the siege of Troy) and Odyssey (the story of Odysseus's journey home after Troy's fall) do not easily match the assumed Mediterranean topography. Various prehistorians, historians, archeologists, and linguists have expressed their consternation about Homer's geographical details. It was Plutarch (46-120 A.D.), who in his essay "The face that appears in the lunar orb," unequivocally states that Goddess Calypso's island of Ogygia mentioned in the Odyssey was situated "five days' sail from Britain, toward the west."

Vinci, a nuclear engineer by profession and a passionate classicist by vocation, took Plutarch's statement as a serious clue to search for the geography of the Homeric epics in the North Atlantic rather than the Mediterranean. He has amassed a mountain of evidence in favor of the Baltic origins of both Greek epics. Similarities between the mythologies of the North and the Mediterranean have often been pointed out. Vinci argues that a deterioration in climate around 2000 B.C. caused some of the Scandinavian peoples to migrate south. As time went by, the epics were claimed by the Greeks for their own Mediterranean culture and environment.

What about Schliemann's Troy? Although this intrepid explorer undoubtedly discovered the Mycenean civilization, his claim to have unearthed the city of Troy has never been universally accepted. Already Strabo ( ) denied that the "ancient Ilium ( Troy)" was to be found in Anatolia. A better candidate for the Homeric Troy than the Anatolian town of Hisarlik, excavated by Schliemann, is possibly the Finnish town of Toija, as suggested by Vinci.

Vinci's audacious rewriting of Homeric culture and mythology is a creative proposition, which deserves to be further investigated. He has my full vote of confidence.

[...]

This book ranks amongst the very best military history I have ever read. It incorporates a detailed account of Charles XII's campaign that led his army deep into Ukraine, the action at Poltava, clear portraits of the main actors and moving accounts of what happened to so many of the ordinary Swedish soldiers (the wealth of information that the writer has for such an old battle is really astonishing). As it says on the cover, it pulls no punches about fighting. It makes an excellent starting point for delving into warfare of the era. I was especially impressed by the descriptions of the artillery fire and its consequences, the terrible fate of the wounded, the sacrifices made by the Swedish soldiers in order to save their king and the paradox ethics of warfare at that time. The book is mainly focused on the Swedish side with the Russians mentioned in a general and not so analytical way. Thus the subtitle on the cover should rather be "Potlava and the Demise of the Swedish Empire".

Firstly it must be said that this narrative is told from a distinctly Swedish perspective. The Russian forces are largely faceless and there nowhere near the same degree of detail about the Russian forces of Peter the Great as there is those of Charles the XII.

Englund starts with detailed analysis of force organisation. How did such a small country with a combined population of a little over a Million become the major power in Northern Europe? Some clues are found in the revolutionary way of raising the Swedish Army and the skilful leadership of Charles XII. The Swedes were also not the lovable pastey-faced ideoluges of peace and understanding as we know them today; they were ruthless in their suppression of enemy popultions and their rapacious behaviour in cowing almost all of central Europe. Moreover they highly motivated by territorial incentives. Peter the Great's Russia was unfortunate enough to be the nearest and most logical enemy to attack with Sweden traditionally controlling almost all of the modern-day Baltic states as an advanced glacis to both protect and launch offensives against Russia.

Englund dwells very little on the political motives for war and plunges right in with the march of the Armies from Livonia and modern-day Poland into the heart of Russia. We follow this army as Russia eventually draws is deeper and deeper into Sweden trading land for time and letting the elements of Russia eat away at the invader. In the hot summer sun the Battle of Poltava is really the only military option that Charles had and although it may have been successful one is always amazed at the plan to battle through a line of heavily armed forts, reform on the other side and then wheel to attack the main Russian force, also heavily entrenched. But Englund gives us a breath of adventure and dash in the movements of the Swedes and we hope that they will somehow pull if off...

The fighting is as desperate and intense as in any war, but as with the Germans over 300 yrs later, there is a particularly frightening shadow of being isolated and cut off by the Russians with no hope of reuniting with your main force.... all the time being deep in the Russian hinterland.

We follow the army as it turns and tries its getaway. Compressed within the ends of the Dnieper it eventually gives way, but our redoubtable Charles XII escapes. Englund leaves us there, there is nothing more about the remarkable adventure of Charles from that point, or his further attempts to dominate Europe, all crushed eventually. Poltava ended a 100 year dominance of the Swedes as the greatest land army in Europe, unbeatable until Poltava, but never really challenging the heartland of Russia.

One word: excellent. Wish more books of that level of quality were written and published.

Englund has written a detailed history of a key battle fought between Sweden and Russia in 1709. Although an interesting book it often becomes bogged down in its detail, both in terms of statistics and in terms of its description of the battle. The book is also limited in that it's told exclusively from the Swedish standpoint. There is little, if any, information from the Russian perspective that may have given more insight into how and why the battle evolved as it did.

However, the book is not without merit. The description of the Swedish army preparing for battle and its later disintegration as attrition and the fog of war took over, is key in understanding why the Swedes lost and allows insight into the impact of the fog of war. It also allows insight into how quickly that factor becomes real once a battle has been joined. Englund does an excellent job of describing the events leading up to the battle especially as they apply to the condition of the Swedish army on the eve of Poltava and its impact on why the Swedish king chose to fight when and how he did.

Despite the book's subtitle, Englund does little to link Poltava to the rise of Russia. Although it appears this is a generally accepted truth, he does not put the battle in the context of the Great Northern War, which didn't end until 1721.

This book was originally published in 1988. Its success took everyone by surprise, including the author, then a freshly baked historian at Uppsala University, Sweden. It has retained its bestseller status in Sweden ever since. Now, this excellent book about an important, but comparatively unknown event in world history, has been reissued in the U.S.
Peter Englund follows in the footsteps of Edward Gibbon, who taught that good history should also be good literature. The direct inspiration for this book was John Prebble's 1963 classic book Culloden