Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Volcanic Book, 6 April 2000
By A Customer
The Balkans, an eternal crossroad of different civilizations and cultures even today, is considered to be the 'navel of the world' or as Sam Vaknin puts it in his erratic, eruptive, intellectual volcano of a book, 'After the Rain - How the West Lost the East' - 'is the unconscious of the world' ('The Mind of Darkness') or worse, probably a navel, but 'the Balkan is a body without a brain' ('Homo Balkanus'). There are a few other, similarly neuralgic points on Earth, but what distinguishes the Balkans from the rest is that it is precisely via its central part - Macedonia - that Christianity and modern literacy invaded Europe. The Byzantine civilization - traceable in today's Balkans as a junction of the Hellenic spirit and the wisdom of Byzantium, deeply rooted in the cultures of Babylon and the old Mesopotamian civilizations - is still of high interest to modern scholars of the Balkans. Dr. Sam Vaknin is one of these contemporary detectors of the 'transitions' in the East, who is trying to discover, understand and direct the Balkans and the East through his publicist work. In his book 'After the Rain - How the West Lost the East', Dr. Sam Vaknin is a sincere investigator of the 'Homo Balkanus', of the Easterner, his mind, culture and way of living, defining him 'a full fledges narcissist'. Immediately after that, in 'The Magla Vocables' he says that even linguistically 'it is impossible to really understand an Easterner', mocking or more precisely reaching the level of real offence in portraying the image of the intellectuals of the East ('The Poets and Eclipse'). Reading this large book of essays, however, one should bear in mind that the author is limited by the clichés of his framework of values and thinking given to him by the culture and system of rules from which he originated. Thus, his articles are provocative, turbulent, irritating, revolting. The impact of his writing is terrible with the strength of hurricane. His word often kill, his defeatism nullifies. Sometimes pretentious, still 'After the Rain' represents a serious, lucid and transcendent effort to make the Balkan closer, to introduce the East to the West, ignoring for a moment the pessimistic assertion that the West already lost the East.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
You Don't Say, Dr. Vaknin!, 1 April 2000
By A Customer
Dr. Vaknin's work is nothing less than a revolutionary way of looking at, and understanding, developments in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union. If your eyes glaze over from the usual treatment of ethnic strife, economies in transition, and democratization in eastern Europe, Sam Vaknin's book is for you. Unlike most writers on the topic, he has the advantage of having lived in the region for many years and worked inside various governments. More importantly, he refuses to bow to political correctness -- a unique attribute for a western analyst covering the Balkans. There is not a chapter of this book that fails to enlighten, surprise, amuse or infuratiate. These are natural reactions to Dr. Vaknin's keen powers of observation, his insight, and his vivid, take-no-prisoners writing style. I have never had so much fun reading about a topic that is often inherently depressing. You may agree or disagree with Dr. Vaknin's views, but you won't be able to put away his book until you've read it cover to cover. Also recommended: Anything by Misha Glenny on this topic.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The distilled essence of the Balkans, 1 April 2000
By A Customer
Using a variety of remarkably astute Political and Economical observations as the most transparent excuse Dr Vaknin has produced a portable pocket sized Balkan State. Cunningly fitted between the covers are remarkable vivid sketches of the still mysterious Balkans as they are today, "After the rain". All seen through the eyes of one of the last true "Wandering Jews". Every shade, colour and nuance is there, hard information, constantly interupted by the shifting colours of a reforming world on the brink of the 21st century. A world of heros, rogues and fools as old as time itself and as new as the morning. A very unusual and precious book.
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