Must-read books about the Black Sea
The Danube A Journey Upriver from the Black Sea to the Black Forest
by Nick Thorpe
The author takes us on a surreal journey up the Danube, where we encounter an incredible and strange world. The majestic Danube flows through and alongside ten central European countries: Romania, Ukraine, Moldova, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia, Austria, and Germany.
Nick Thorpe embarks on an inspiring year-long journey that will provide him with a new perspective on Europe today by traveling the entire length of the river from east to west, against the flow. Thorpe's account is intimate, conversational, funny, direct, and unmistakably observant—everything a reader expects from great travel writing. Thorpe takes daily morning swims in the Danube, immersing himself in the histories of the lands connected by the river. He observes the river's ecological conditions, some of which are depressing and some of which are hopeful, and comes across archaeological remains that speak of human communities sustained by the river over the course of eight millennia.
The most fascinating people along the way are the ordinary and extraordinary people—ferrymen and fishermen, field workers, shopkeepers, beekeepers, waitresses, smugglers and border policemen, legal and illegal immigrants, and many more. This book will be a one-of-a-kind and treasured resource for readers planning their own Danube journeys.
The Raven Brothers
The legends of Jason and the Argonauts, Noah's Ark, and a tribe of fierce female warriors known as the Amazons all originate in the Black Sea. Curiosity grips the Raven Brothers, as they fire up their twenty-year-old Volvo and set out on a quest to complete a full circle around this ancient body of water that is the birthplace of civilisation.
The authors meet the fascinating people who live in the six countries that surround these colorful shores. They travel the world like the nomadic horse bowmen who once ruled the steppe grasslands, stopping in Crimea, the Caucasus region of southern Russia's "Wild West," the Georgian kingdom of Colchis, Turkey's Pontic coast, Istanbul, and finally in Romania at the Danube's delta. When the brothers coaxed a rusted Ford Sierra from the UK to Vladivostok across Siberia, they launched a writing career in overland adventure travel.
by Charles King
The lands surrounding the Black Sea have a rich history. As a meeting point for the Balkans, Central Asia, and the Middle East, the Black Sea is more important than ever.
In this lively and entertaining book based on extensive research in multiple languages, Charles King investigates the numerous connections that have made the Black Sea more of a bridge than a boundary, connecting religious communities, linguistic groups, empires, and, later, nations and states.
by Neal Ascherson
In this study of fateful encounters between Europe and Asia on the shores of a legendary sea, Neal Ascherson investigates the disputed meanings of community, nationhood, history, and culture in a region famous for its dramatic conflicts. According to Ascherson, what distinguishes the Back Sea cultures is the way their constituent parts came together over millennia to shape unique communities, languages, religions, and trade. For centuries, Black Sea patterns in the Caucasus, Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Turkey, and Greece have linked European and Asian peoples, as he convincingly demonstrates.
