Ian Barnes (1) (1946–2014)

Pretty good. The basic format is a page of history on the left and a map on the right, although now and then there’s more text or more map, and now and then the map seems out of place (Jewish settlement in New York City or the Spanish Civil War, for example – both of these had Russian involvement, of course, but it still seems a little strained). Nevertheless this is one of the better of these “historical atlas” books, and wouldn’t be a bad start for someone interested in the history of Russian civilization. I found the historical essays enlightening, particularly the “preTsarist” and early Tsarist periods.

One of the points the author makes is the sheer size of Russia made everything more complicated. The population never really caught up with the geography; although the “Russian hordes” were a boogeyman in Western eyes for years, the Russian population didn’t pass that of France until the nineteenth century. That’s one of the explanations for serfdom – to prevent peasants from just wandering off for better land. And the current population is in decline. It will be interesting to see what things look like in 10 years.… (mais)

Quite disappointing. I’m fond of maps, and therefore also fond of atlases. However, The Historical Atlas of the Celtic World is very poorly done. The format is: each pair of pages has text on the left and a map on the facing page (with sometimes some text there as well if it’s a small map); this strategy is flawed to start with, as it forces subjects that should have multiple pages of discussion or multiple maps into the format. The design – overall layout of the book; editing – checking the subject matter for comprehensibility; proofreading – checking for spelling and grammar errors; and fact checking are all bad. Many of the maps don’t seem to relate to the accompanying text; there are outright errors of fact (The Gauls sacked Rome in 89 BC? Missing an initial “3” there); the choice of what to illustrate with maps is perverse (there are detailed battle maps of Bushy Run, First Manassas and the Somme – because Irish and/or Scots units were involved – but none of Flodden or Killiecrankie or Prestonpans). The maps themselves often lack legends or have legends that don’t correspond to symbols used, and the choice of colors is often poor (using pale greenish grey, pale greyish green and pale blue green to illustrate different ethnic groups in Iron Age Celtic Spain, for example. Subjects that cry out for illustration – various Celtic banners, for example – don’t have any (we are told, for example, that the royal standard of the King of Scots is “Or, a lion rampany gules armed and langued azure within a double tressure flory counterflory”. OK if you can do heraldic blazonry in your head but it would seem a picture would serve better than a text description).


This is a large book so amidst all this stuff there are a few interesting things (but even then I’m not sure how much to trust them given factual errors elsewhere). For example, the original center of Celtic civilization – the Hallstadt culture – was somewhere around Prague, not a place you normally think of as Celtic. I was also amused and rather touched to find that the Welsh expatriate community in Argentina – founded in the 1860s - holds an annual eisteddfod, and some of the local Teheulche Indians have learned Welsh and participate. I was also intrigued by the mention of Breton nationalists – Bezen Perrot – cooperating with Nazi occupiers during WWII, to the extent of engaging in pitched battles with the maquis. In Cornwall, medieval tin miners set up their own courts – the Stanneries – and were granted a charter by King John giving them jurisdiction over the mining areas except in cases involving “land, life or limb”. As it happens, the charter was never revoked and Cornish nationalists have argued Stannary law is still in effect in Cornwall (which already has a somewhat different status within the United Kingdom than other areas; the other Celtic “nation”, the Isle of Man, has an even more complicated relationship with Great Britain and the rest of Europe).


Not recommended unless you know enough about the subject matter to spot all the errors, in which case you don’t need the book anyway.… (mais)

A great book. Not only is it well written, but also the book traces Russian history from the beginning and goes up to Putin. The Russian role in defeating Germany in WWII is told well; we in the west pay attention to our own defeat of these monsters. I knew it was difficult but it was also unbelievable. Why these people fought like demons after Stalin wrecked the army by shooting or jailing most of the officers is still unknown;
A dispassionate look at a country by a marvelous writer who is now deceased. Most map books have a lot of maps and a little commentary; this has maps on every other page and a written commentary for most of the book.… (mais)