Empire's Edge: Travels in South-Eastern Europe, Turkey and Central Asia

Rating:
Summary: Superb insight into the sufi'ism of Central Asia
Review: (I hate to use superlatives but) this was by far the most interesting book on the subject. It does a good job of conveying to the reader, what makes the people on the Steppe's of Central Asia and Anatolya tick. Do not expect a Lonely planet style "Guide Book".

Rating:
Summary: An eye-opening journey to unfamiliar places
Review: Well, wait a minute, let me qualify that title: Unfamiliar to the vast majority of Americans (me included), for whom the world west of Monaco and south of Munich is pretty much unknown territory. Malcolmson divides his book into four sections: Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Uzbekistan. They're more or less independent of each other, but bound together by a common theme: how different groups of people see, think about, and define themselves.

Each of the four sections is a patchwork of smaller segments, some pages long and others only a few sentences. Some of the segments are Malcolmson's sketching-in of history, some records of his own reactions to things he saw or heard, some records of what other people said to him. It can be dizzying and disorienting at the beginning of a section, like looking at two square inches out of the middle of an impressionist painting, but as you read on the details resolve themselves into a coherent picture. By the end of a section, you feel like you understand--a little anyway--how the Romanians or Turks or Uzbeks think about the world and its inhabitants (themselves and others).

This is *not* a conventional travel narrative *or* a conventional history book. Its historical scope is too sweeping for the one, and its focus too personal for the other. As a portrait of the places and people Malcolmson visited, however, it may contain more Truth than either would alone.

Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: An eye-opening journey to unfamiliar places
Review: Well, wait a minute, let me qualify that title: Unfamiliar to the vast majority of Americans (me included), for whom the world west of Monaco and south of Munich is pretty much unknown territory. Malcolmson divides his book into four sections: Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Uzbekistan. They're more or less independent of each other, but bound together by a common theme: how different groups of people see, think about, and define themselves.

Each of the four sections is a patchwork of smaller segments, some pages long and others only a few sentences. Some of the segments are Malcolmson's sketching-in of history, some records of his own reactions to things he saw or heard, some records of what other people said to him. It can be dizzying and disorienting at the beginning of a section, like looking at two square inches out of the middle of an impressionist painting, but as you read on the details resolve themselves into a coherent picture. By the end of a section, you feel like you understand--a little anyway--how the Romanians or Turks or Uzbeks think about the world and its inhabitants (themselves and others).

This is *not* a conventional travel narrative *or* a conventional history book. Its historical scope is too sweeping for the one, and its focus too personal for the other. As a portrait of the places and people Malcolmson visited, however, it may contain more Truth than either would alone.

Highly recommended.