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Review
"Timothy Snyder's style is a welcome reminder that history writing can be - indeed, ought to be - a literary pursuit." - Charles King, Times Literary Supplement"
Samuel P. Huntington, Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies
A brilliant and fascinating analysis of the subtleties, complexities, and paradoxes of the evolution of nations in Eastern Europe.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Although I'm not a historian, my ancestors are from the region Snyder writes about, and I think he has written an excellent book. It's not for the faint-hearted, in the sense that the history of the region is very complicated indeed, and yet he takes us clearly, confidently and in a very structured way through four centuries and the intertwined histories of five peoples (for the Jews of the area had no country of their own). He comes across in full command of an enormous amount of material and data, and manages to explain without prejudice or bias, the most horrific events so that they can be seen and understood from the perspectives of all the peoples and nations involved. If you want or need to understand why the map of Europe is the way it is today, I can't imagine anyone doing it more fairly or clearly than Snyder. And if you are connected with Eastern Europe in any way, although you may feel sad about the way things have ended up as a result of twentieth century history, you will probably agree that the situation now is the best that could be achieved, given the past.
6 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Took me a while to read and does occassionaly get very detailed so not for all readers however. However, very well written and given the subject matter it is very readable. The last chapter on the 1990s was a particular highlight - as was the section on WW2 Ukraine, which was harrowing. Highly recommended
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
12 reviews
48 of 51 people found the following review helpful
Essential for Understanding Eastern Europe
11 April 2003
Format:Hardcover
This is THE book for all those interested in a better understanding of Eastern Europe. It is a model of its kind, unique in scope, shows a mastery of multiple langauge sources, and is a scholarly yet readable account of the history of the largest European country of its day, the Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealthy of 1569. Prof. Snyder's account is masterly, even-handed, and scrupulously fair with a clear and valuable thesis. It brings the complex strands of a neglected part of Europe into focus and explains while Poland and its Eastern neighbors were able to reach a peaceful accommodation after the downfall of the soviet Union. Tragically, the Balkans did not enjoy the longterm fencebuilding that kept this corner of the world at peace. Snyder's account of the Polish-Ukrainian conflicts during World War II is groundbreaking and fills a vital gap in this story. Not since "God's Playground" has the story been told so well. Wonderful book. Buy it.
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Very Insightful
5 Dec 2010
Format:Paperback
You will be hard-pressed to find a better English-language history of the past 150 years in Vilnius and in Volhynia/Galicia. Snyder goes into great detail about the history and ironies of Polish, Lithuanian and Ukrainian nationalism (Belarussian history and nationalism, described as a "national failure" by Snyder, gets shorter shrift). The modern history of these until-recently contested regions is quite complicated and arouses great passions from Poles/Lithuanians and Poles/Ukrainians to this day. Snyder does an excellent job of trying to approach the history here as something fresh, rather than try to amalgamate different competing national mythologies.
A warning: this is not a comprehensive history of the region, and is not even really a comprehensive history of modern Polish, Lithuanian and Ukrainian nationalism. A great many events, places and people are mentioned in passing, and if you do not already have a firm grounding in East European history you can easily get lost as the tides of history swirl by. The book is best understood as having, at its heart, a history of the Vilnius guberniya and a history of the Volhynia guberniya and Galician Koenigreich from about 1900 to about 1950. The chapters on Volhynia during the Second World War are at once both the most harrowing and also the most illustrative as to how individuals and groups were able to switch back and forth between ideologies and how persecutions and atrocities were able to build one on top of another. This goes a much longer way than many other recent histories in explaining just how genocide and ethnic cleansing was able to occur in Europe in the 20th century.
The last third of the book, dealing with Polish foreign policy, is the weakest (and the most poorly-edited). It felt a bit like a thesis paper spun out into 100 pages of a book: the same argument was largely made over and over again as to how Polish foreign policy post 1945 was able to be shaped by emigres, and how this foreign policy achieved peace in Eastern Europe post 1989. Honestly, this had little to do with the rest of the book, except as an epilogue, and would probably have been better handled in a separate book. It felt a little too idealistic, a little to Poland-centric (and largely focused on the ideas of a few elite, at that) and definitely controversial. For all of Snyder's arguments, no explanation is really ultimately given for why Poland was able to adopt such a forward-looking foreign policy, especially after all the conflicts and persecutions that he just finished documenting a few chapters earlier.
In any event, the book is a good read, covers a good breath of history in a wide area, and will be a welcome supplement to anyone interested in the region's history.
A warning: this is not a comprehensive history of the region, and is not even really a comprehensive history of modern Polish, Lithuanian and Ukrainian nationalism. A great many events, places and people are mentioned in passing, and if you do not already have a firm grounding in East European history you can easily get lost as the tides of history swirl by. The book is best understood as having, at its heart, a history of the Vilnius guberniya and a history of the Volhynia guberniya and Galician Koenigreich from about 1900 to about 1950. The chapters on Volhynia during the Second World War are at once both the most harrowing and also the most illustrative as to how individuals and groups were able to switch back and forth between ideologies and how persecutions and atrocities were able to build one on top of another. This goes a much longer way than many other recent histories in explaining just how genocide and ethnic cleansing was able to occur in Europe in the 20th century.
The last third of the book, dealing with Polish foreign policy, is the weakest (and the most poorly-edited). It felt a bit like a thesis paper spun out into 100 pages of a book: the same argument was largely made over and over again as to how Polish foreign policy post 1945 was able to be shaped by emigres, and how this foreign policy achieved peace in Eastern Europe post 1989. Honestly, this had little to do with the rest of the book, except as an epilogue, and would probably have been better handled in a separate book. It felt a little too idealistic, a little to Poland-centric (and largely focused on the ideas of a few elite, at that) and definitely controversial. For all of Snyder's arguments, no explanation is really ultimately given for why Poland was able to adopt such a forward-looking foreign policy, especially after all the conflicts and persecutions that he just finished documenting a few chapters earlier.
In any event, the book is a good read, covers a good breath of history in a wide area, and will be a welcome supplement to anyone interested in the region's history.
26 of 33 people found the following review helpful
Highly recommended.
6 Jun 2005
Format:Paperback
Well, being born in one of those Central Belarussian towns I would say I agree with 95% of material and it's analized with good skills. I highly recommend this book to anyone with interest in Eastern Europe history and to descendents of Poles, Belarussians and Ukrainians.
It is worth to remember that Commonwealth expirienced Ortodox( Uniates), Catholics, Protestans, Muslims(Tatar) living together in unity and friendship, while in Europe religious cleansings were at the peak.
I was also surprised I didnt found any information about Sluck Fight against Bolsheviks( since it is very important to Belarus history) and general Stanislaw Bulak-Balachowicz, who declaired compliance with first Belarus Government in 1919, not with Poles...and after forcibly evacuating to Polish territories was unarmed by polish "friend" Pilsudski.
It is worth to remember that Commonwealth expirienced Ortodox( Uniates), Catholics, Protestans, Muslims(Tatar) living together in unity and friendship, while in Europe religious cleansings were at the peak.
I was also surprised I didnt found any information about Sluck Fight against Bolsheviks( since it is very important to Belarus history) and general Stanislaw Bulak-Balachowicz, who declaired compliance with first Belarus Government in 1919, not with Poles...and after forcibly evacuating to Polish territories was unarmed by polish "friend" Pilsudski.
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