In Europe by Geert Mak

In Europe by Geert Mak

Geert Mak spent the year 1999 criss-crossing the continent, tracing the history of Europe from Verdun to Berlin, Saint Petersburg to Auschwitz, Kiev to Srebrenica. He set off in search of evidence and witnesses, looking to define the condition of Europe at the verge of a new millennium. The result is mesmerising: Mak's rare double talent as a sharp-eyed journalist and a hugely imaginative historian makes "In Europe" a dazzling account of that journey, full of diaries, newspaper reports and memoirs, and the voices of prominent figures and unknown players; from the grandson of Kaiser Wilhelm II to Adrinana Warno in Poland, with her holiday job at the gates of the camp at Birkenau. But Mak is above all an observer. He describes what he sees at places that have become Europe's well-springs of memory, where history is written into the landscape. At Ypres, he hears the blast of munitions from the Great War that are still detonated there twice a day. In Warsaw, he finds the point where the tram rails that led to the Jewish ghetto come to a dead end in a city park. And in an abandoned creche near Chernobyl, where tiny pairs of shoes still stand in neat rows, he is transported back to the moment time stood still in the dying days of the Soviet Union. Mak combines the larger story of twentieth-century Europe with details that suddenly give it a face, a taste and a smell. His unique approach makes the reader an eyewitness to his own half-forgotten past, full of unknown peculiarities, sudden insights and touching encounters. "In Europe" is a masterpiece; it reads like the epic novel of Europe's most extraordinary century.

Geert Mak is a journalist and historian, and one of Holland's bestselling writers; his books include Amsterdam and Jorwerd.

SKU	Nicht verfügbar
ISBN 13	9781843432265
ISBN 10	1843432269
Titel	In Europe
Autor	Geert Mak
Buchzustand	Nicht verfügbar
Bindungsart	Hardback
Verlag	Vintage Publishing
Erscheinungsjahr	2007-03-01
Seitenanzahl	896
Hinweis auf dem Einband	Die Abbildung des Buches dient nur Illustrationszwecken, die tatsächliche Bindung, das Cover und die Auflage können sich davon unterscheiden.
Hinweis	Nicht verfügbar