I knew when I ordered this book it would be from a particular point of view and even though it was not as extreme as I expected, it was true to form. The author here regards himself as a true student of the Balkans and Byzantine history, unlike others before him. He states early on that he is a Vlachophile and that if there is one Vlach speaker in a village it is labeled as being Vlach by him. And here lies his flaw.

Winnifruth may be a good historian, by this I mean the ability to gather lots of information, but his writing is style is confusing. The chapters are broken down in to time periods, but he will jump ahead to vaildate a point which can be very confusing and names and facts are crammed all together. His main anchor for ethnicity is language, but most of his ideas are assumptions and rules can change when he chooses. One case in point is that if Greek writing is found in ruins located in modern Albania then the people must have been Greek, but it is never taken into account that Greek was the written language at the time and it makes sense that the Greek alphabet would be used. At one point he mentions the Chams of Greece (He calls them by the Greek Tsam). They are labeled as Albanian speaking Muslims. If language is his guide these people are Albanian not Albanian speaking. Another point is the Arvanit community in Greece that is associated as being Greek, but only spoke Albanian a hundred years ago. Here language does not show what the comminuty sees itself as. Another point is the assumption of ethnicity of historical figures by their name and even thinking they are pure in their background. Names mean nothing and are written according to what a writer feels sound better. Mary was orginally Meriam, John Cabot was born Giovanni Cabato. So names me very little. Skenderbeg has the following names... Gjergj Kastrioti (alb), Jorgos Kastriotis (grk), Giorgio Castrioti (Ita). All depends on who is doing the writing.

I do get the feeling that he is less that loving towards Albanians and very much enamored with Vlach/Hellenic culture. Best part of this book is it's a book and all sources must be read to better understand a subject. And I give him credit for having tried to be unbias, but it does show. There are points where he tries to be fair and steps away from some of the insane biased statements out there

This book should appeal mainly to Russian librarians and scholars. Most of the book lists the various holdings of Romanov and Imperial Palace library materials in the holdings of the New York Public Library. The compilation is by Personage (alphabetically from Emperor Alexander I to Grand Duke Vladimir Aleksandrovich, who has the greatest number of listings); then by Palaces and finally by The Fekula Donation, Summer, 1998. The listings are amply cross indexed by 1. Name and Title, 2. Places of Publication, 3. Publishers. 4.Date of Publication and finally, 5. Subject. There are only 10 illustrations of which 3 are in color. Annotations are minimal and confined mainly to descriptions of bindings and signatures without any consideration as to the importance of any particular book. One must have a working knowledge of Russian to understand most of the titles in the checklist as they are transliterated from the original Russian. The 47 page introduction by Robert H. Davis, Jr. and Edward Kasinec is fascinating as it tells how the books found their way out of Russia especially during the Soviet era. Only a man of such experience as Mr. Kasinec could write such an important essay. This is not a coffee table book.

This book deserves a 3 and 1/2 star rating but since we can't do halfsies here I'll have to round down. The subject is more fascinating than this book reads. The author repeats himself way too many times and offers us a very limited perspective on the topic. Admittedtly that view, of the legitimacy of the representation of the Baltic peoples through their foreign legations, limits discussion, but the human dimension of an imprisoned people struggling for cultural survival deserves more than the dry legalese this book is written in.
Since there is so little on this subject, for aficionados of esoteric cold war conflicts, this is almost a must-read. Hopefully someone will take up the mantle and write a volume on the people of the Baltic diaspora that helped these isolated legations maintain the embers of repressed nationalism.

This book is another one of those lit crit essays. It's better than average, if you're into that sort of stuff. But if you're looking for solid information (not based on interpretation from literature) about the Balkans, there's not very much in this book. The author chooses mainly Serbian authors, or authors writing from Belgrade and he seems well aware that this is the politically un-correct side to be describing at this point in time. Perhaps for this reason, he tries to stay clear of politics, aside from a few mentions of atrocities against the Serbs during World War II. If you like reading other people's interpretations of novels you've never heard of, then you might enjoy this book.

The 22 months of Soviet occupation in Eastern Poland and Lithuania is a history little known to western readers. This well researched book provides yet another window into this period. Stalin's occupation was planned with the Nazis and designed to cripple Poland permanently in the same way he crippled Russia, that is to destroy all "reactionary elements," primarily Polish but eventually also Jewish, the target being the political, military, academic, professional and business leadership. The story of the travails of the territory's Jewish inhabitants is very informative albeit somewhat sanitized. Jewish enthusiasm and violence in their collabortion with the Russians against their non-Jewish fellow citizens is glossed over. There is, on the other hand, much told of what happened when the occupiers turned against the Jewish population once the Bolshevik's primary goals were met. These were the execution of over 25,000 Polish citizens and the deportation to slave labor of over 2 million Polish citizens where half were starved, frozen or worked to death. Readers who have a knowledge of history will be unsatisfied by the limited scope of the book and by the book's failure to take the opportunity to put inter-ethnic tensions during the war into perspective.

We felt like we wasted our money on this guide. The authors tried to cover too much ground in one book -- in doing so, the reader is left with a feeling that the info is incomplete and inadequate. We did not visit Latvia or Lithania, but we did see some of Moscow and St. Petersburg before taking the Finnish Sibelius train to Helsinki. We also visited Tallinn, Estonia by Silja's wonderful "Super Seacat IV" ferry. (The two of us traveled on our own -- avoiding the tour groups.) Russia/Finland/Estonia is a wonderful trip to for younger and older adults (leave the small kids at home). The title of the book is somewhat misleading, as the authors focus on and cram Helsinki, Tallinn, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Vilnius, and Riga into 138 pages. Page 42, "Eating in Helsinki" only received 2/3 of a page (five short paragraphs). The chapter on Tallinn, Estonia is only 15 pages and is sadly incomplete -- as we walked around Tallinn, we wondered if Rick Steves had actually ever visited Estonia.

Simply stated, this book borders on useless. If you buy this book and are planning to go to the Baltics, I hope you only want to see the capital cities. There is no mention of the beautiful seaside resort towns, eco-tourism spots which are very popular there, or even the major cities other than Riga, Vilnius, and Tallinn. Similarly, with Russia, don't plan on learning any useful info beyond what's written on Moscow & St. Petes. Even the info which *is* presented is so minimalistic that you it would not aide anyone. Advice such as "ask a native speaker to help you get a taxi" isnt exactly helpful, is it? No, and neither are the handdrawn maps. One saving grace with this book: it has good bus information (but the most recent info given is for 1997!). Want a good guide on the Baltics? Check out the "Lonely Planet" guide for this region, which I would give at least 4 out of 5 stars. I hope Amazon lets me "return" Rick Steve's book.

This book covers the gateway that you'll probably use (in my case Helsinki), the cities you'll probably go to (Moscow and St. Petersburg), and the Baltics. Steves separated the wheat from the chaff, and this tiny guide was all I needed for 2 weeks in Russia and the Baltics. Others may be bigger, but they will have you working overtime to determine where to go, and what to do. This tiny little guide covered everything needed for the independent traveler. The only thing I have to criticize is: whenever possible use trains, not buses.

Yet another British anti-Russian book. We've heard and seen it all before.

The most tiresome thing is the petty Putin "KGB spy" scaremongering. It is time to move on, Martin.

Mr. McCauley amazes. How a man could apparently spend 20 years in a field and still know next to nothing on it is remarkable. One school of thought has it that either McCauley is learning disabled or is so filled with xenophobic, patronising Brit-hate he fails to take notice of the reality outside his prejudice.

His perspective is typically British - "Everyone is rubbish but us". His hated Russia has made Space Stations, sent men into space, built modern fighter aircraft and has an excellent educational system, none of which the UK can claim as achievements. Internet use is far more common and widespread in Russia than the UK - because the UK has rotting 1940s phone lines and massively overpriced phone billing. In Moscow, trains run on time. In London, trains occasionally run on time. Unlike the UK, Russia has a democratically elected Head of State. Russia may be behind the UK in the world of Fast Food, Punk Rock and Football Hooligans, but it is far ahead in other areas.

McCauley's book provides, well-written, interesting information on the corruption that riddles Russia's government, hindering it's transition to "market capitalism". However, it is strongly advised that the reader have at least basic knowledge of economic principles/schools of thought (e.g.Monetarists, Keynes, Smith) before reading. An excellent read for anyone new to the wild world of Russian politics, McCauley's work is not weighed down by extensive technical jargon as are other books in this genre. I definitely recommend it!

I have the book "Sultans" and I find it very subjective. The part about Ataturk is direct replica of Armstrong's "Grey Wolf." At other parts, the writer tried to show that he is quoting from other people as if every person who wrote a book is worthy of quoting. All the quotations are from the missionaries living in Turkey. Given that Turkey was considered to be "the others" in the Christian world, you can not expects the missionaries to be fair in their explanations...

But if you read the book with this in mind, actually the personal explanations of the sultans are fun to read. I learned some personal details about Abdul Hamid which I did not know for example.

But I would not suggest this book as a means to get historical information.

I am a history major at Indiana State University and wrote a paper on the Great Siege of Malta in 1565. I briefly used the book to introduced myself to Süleyman the Magnificent. I disgaree with the reviewer that the book has an agenda of blackening the name of the Turks and their greatest leader Attaturk (Mustafa Kamal).

I did not enjoy reading Noel Barber and used most of my research on Süleyman I in other books. I recommend looking at (1) Shaw Stadford's History of the Ottoman Empire & Modern Turkey Volume 1: Empire of the Gazis and (2) Jason Goodwin's Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire. I give the book two stars because it did not impress very much. It was very a boring book and in a period of twenty-five years there have been many discoveries on the Ottoman Empire that this book is lacking. It is just a great book to full up space at a library.

Who is Süleyman I (if you do not know)? Süleyman I, the sultan of the Ottoman Empire was admired and feared by Europeans as "the Magnificent," and the Turkish people called the "Lawgiver." During his reign, he added to the empire of Hungary, Transylvania, Tripoli, Algiers, Iraq, Rhodes, eastern Anatolia, parts of Georgia, Aegean Islands, Belgrade and Crebe.

This book has been highly maligned by a previous reviewer. The reviewer seems to forget that every tragedy against the greek and the armenian detailed in the book by the turks, is true and documented, and in addition the author spends many pages skewering the false notion of the innocent greeks, and notes in detail every time the greeks wronged the turks. It is a shame that his judgement was so clouded and I suspect that the entire book was not read.
What made this book so enjoyable is the writing, a history written like a spy novel. Noel Barber can run the gamut from very dry (very british humor) to pulse pounding murder mystery, to war room of analysis of battlefield tactics, insight into the desceptive world of diplomacy and yet still very reverently accounts greek, armenian and turkish massacres. This follows the Ottman empire from the height of its powers under Suleiman the Magnificient to the Turkey's final emanicipator Kamal Attaturk. Each sultan is given a mini-biography, filled with "Ripley's believe it or not"-like facts, designed to amaze and yet all are true, yet three sultans are studied in detail and to great effect, evoking, emotions from awe to pity, Suleiman the Magnificent, Abdul Hamid II and Kamal Attaturk. Napoleon, Lord Nelson, Churchill, Queen Elizabeth I, Henry VIII, Benjamin Disreali, Queen Victoria and Czar Nicolas all make cameo appearances. It reads more like a novel than a history and yet it is astoundingly accurate. Not only is it a history of the turks, because the Ottomans controlled so much of the muslim world for nearly 500 years, it is also a history of the muslim world and really endlessly fascinating, but what Noel Barber excellently does is tell the private and public lives and struggles of each of the sultans and how that related to the world at the time. This book could have been much more been haughtily named, "The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire," and it would have been equally accurate. But ultimately what makes this a great book is Barber's storytelling that makes the sultans charactures and yet fully realised humans at the same time.

Reviewed by Zhidas Daskalovski (School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London) E-mail: daskalovski@hotmail.com

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In less then a year time span, the academic world was offered two accounts of the so-called Macedonian Question. First, in 1999, James Pettifer edited The New Macedonian Question, and then, in 2000, Victor Roudometof presented his The Macedonian Question. Both books were compiled by visiting professors at academic institutions based in Thessaloniki, Greece, Petiffer at the Institute of Balkan Studies, Roudometof at American College Of Thessaloniki. Given the political situation in the Southern Balkans, this fact raises the question about who wants to reintroduce a "Macedonian question" in the academic and indirectly, in the policy making world, and in whose interest this might be. An informed observer would immediately notice that both monographs are biased in the selection of essays and themes covered. Roudometof, for example, writing a book concerning Macedonia, does not include a single contribution from authors originating from Republic of Macedonia, while Petiffer has two reprints of articles and only one new piece written by a Macedonian sociologist. In any case let's turn our attention to the latest of the two books, The Macedonian Question.

In the introduction of the book Roudometof provides the background to the current state of affairs (p.2), briefly describing the reemergence of the Macedonian question in Balkan politics. Unfortunately, he does this with many inaccuracies and a Greek bias. An early sign of this bias is the editor's usage of the acronym "FYROM" instead of Republic of Macedonia. Given that the reference FYROM is to be used in official UN documents, and the book discussed is obviously not being a part of the UN system, then it is clear that the author himself have decided to use the acronym, instead of the name of the country chosen by itself, Republika Makedonija or Republic of Macedonia in English. Furthermore, the author very early in the introduction poses a link between Macedonia and Kosovo claiming that ^Óover the last two decades the persisting internal political conflict between Albanians and Macedonians has carried with it the seeds of civil unrest and possibly civil war and then asserts that the possibility of limited autonomy or independence for the Kosovo Albanians (including the option of unification with the Albanian state) could set a precedent for FYROM's own Albanian population. (p.2, 3) Doing so, the author proposes that there is a deep enmity among the Macedonians and Macedonian Albanians (two decades of conflict, civil war,) ignores the facts that Serbia's policies in Kosovo have nothing in common with Macedonia's political arrangements and internal party relations, the first being autocratic and exclusionist, the second one being based on democratic principles and ethnic moderation. Further on, Roudometof explains that in the early 1990's the latest twist in the Macedonian Question occurred, as a direct consequence of the disintegration of the second Yugoslavia.(p.3) The reader is puzzled what is the "Macedonian Question" and consequently how long has it lasted (why is it now that the latest twist occurred)? Indeed nowhere in the introduction Roudometof, answers "what is it about", and 'why it is a question' (Macedonian). Posing Macedonia as a "question" is rather different then talking about the contemporary issues concerning Macedonia. Problematizing Macedonia's identity has been long lasting Greek, Bulgarian, and Serbian strategy. Ever since Macedonia was partitioned by the three in the Balkan Wars 1912/1913, its majority Macedonian native population has been object of fierce assimilation policies aimed at questioning, destroying and/or modifying the Macedonian identity into Greek, Bulgarian, and Serbian. Even today, Macedonian national identity is denied by the Greek and Bulgarian official circles not only in Pirin and Aegean Macedonia which are under their jurisdiction and where only small fragments of Macedonian minority still openly declare their Macedonianess, but also in relation to the Macedonians from Republic of Macedonia itself. Sadly, enough in the introduction Roudometof indicates that he has taken this view. For example, he writes the central contemporary controversy concerns the manner in which Bulgarians, Greeks and Macedonians view and interpret Macedonian identity. In particular, conflict centers on the premise that the Slavs of Macedonia [sic] constitute a distinct nation, the Macedonian nation and further on, ..human rights advocates in Bulgaria and Greece have suggested the existence of Macedonian minorities in both states. Thus, the author leaves open the question of the existence of Macedonian nation both in Republic of Macedonia and in Greece and Bulgaria, for why else he would write that there are reports that suggest existence, and that the conflict is over the premise that there is a Macedonian nation. Macedonians as distinct people are a fact which gives difficult times to Sofia and Athens, but why does it make Roudometof uncertain is hard to grasp. In fact, later on in the text the author states that Western academia discovered Macedonians as ethnic group in Canada and Australia, which has led to a debate about the status of the Macedonian "ethnicity" before 1945. He then goes to say that this is far from an academic issue and that at stake is the very distinctiveness of the Macedonians as a separate people, and this in turn is closely associated with their claim [italics mine] to form the Macedonian nation (p.12). At the last page of the brief introduction Roudometof appears prophetic stating as a final note I would like to add that the saga of the Macedonian Question is far from over (p.18). His last words on the matter hint in what kind of direction the book will aim: since the central theme of the Macedonian Question is the social construction of national homogeneity and identity, the historical social sciences can and should contribute to the production of relevant knowledge (p.18).

Loring Danforth's piece is exactly concerned with the question of social construction of identity. Danforth underlines the importance of social upbringing and personal histories for the construction of national identities. Once the members of a single ethnic group originating from northwestern Aegean Macedonia moved into Australia they manifested conflicting national identities. For these people the church served as a significant marker of national identity and they established three different National churches in Melbourne, Australia. Greek state policies vis-à-vis this ethnic group and different interpretation of the local history permeates the feelings and actions of the immigrants. Anastasia Karakasidou's essay strikes a similar note to the one written by Danforth. Karakasidou meticulously analyses the process of assimilation or acculturation of the indigenous population of Northwest Aegean Macedonia into the Greek cultural realm. Karakasidou's evidence that, among the population of the region, Greeks were a substantial minority at the time of the incorporation of this area to the Greek state is perplexing. So is the Greek official terminology for the local Slavo-Macedonians used at the time:

"Voulgharophrones, fanatic Bulgarians, Schismatics, Patriarchists," etc., despite the fact that the bulk of the people who spoke Slavic (i.e. Macedonian dialects) called themselves Macedonians (p.64). As the study shows, these Macedonians, through emigration, forced deportation, refugee resettlement of Asia Minor Greeks, repression, violence and voluntary assimilation have nowadays become a minority population of North Greece(Aegean Macedonia). Especially gruesome is the cited story in which a Greek policeman becomes angry at a Macedonian farmer, who accidentally cursed a recalcitrant ox in his own language rather then Greek, and extinguishes a burning cigarette on the farmer's tongue. Unfortunately enough, the repression of Macedonian language and identity is still part of Greek politics and therefore, to assess the share of the Macedonian population in this country is very intricate. As a final note, I should mention that Karakasidou's study suffers from an unexpected imprecision, as she refers to works that are not mentioned in the list of references. (Her work referred to on pages 58, 61, 65, as well as Danforth's reference on page 84).

Basil Gounaris and Iakovos Mihailidis' "The Pen and the Sword" critically analyses the interplay between politics and historiography. Trying to debunk political agendas by historians writing on the topic of Macedonia the authors point out to a very important detail, a not surprising statement for experienced

analysts of Balkan history, but often overseen by partisan historians and policy makers: "Until the early 1960's few of those who wrote about Macedonia, in the Balkans or in Western Europe, were academics, and even fewer if any at all were professional histo

The most important thing to remember about the "Macedonian conflict" is that the Greek position has changed dramatically over the past decade. Official Greek government policy was that Macedonia did not exist. When Greece took over Aegean Macedonia in 1913, they killed, tortured and ethnically cleansed hundreds of thousands of Macedonians. They changed the names of people, villages, and landmarks from Macedonian to Greek in their attempts to eradicate the Macedonian name.

Two things to remember:

1. It is ironic that Greeks now "love Macedonia" when they tried to eradicate its very existence.

2. If Macedonia has always been Greek, why did the Greek government deny its existence until the 1980's?

please note, this book is a thesis or something. It is not a book on lithuanian mythology. I thought this book would be equivalent to Mythologies but it only contained one full mythological story. the preface was good. but this book lacked all the essentials i thought were basic to the book. it was a study on the mythological parts of certain stories and how it fit the genre. it you are looking for a book on lithuanian mythology search again. if you are looking for a thesis paper on lithuania mythology, this is the item you NEED!

This book is a very scholarly and well researched. While this makes it apealing to scholars, paticularly those interested in the origin of Lituanian words and thier relation to folk beliefs, it is a very hard read. Beggers can't be chosers, however. There do not appear to be any other works available on this subject. I would very much like to find other works in English on Lithuanian mythology. I would also welcome emails from anyone with similar interests, information about other sources, or personal knowledge of Lithuanian folk beliefs.