A review by kathleenitpdx
Odessa: Genius and Death in a City of Dreams by Charles King
3.0
This is a biography of the city of Odessa, its antecedents, its growth, and its struggles. Odessa was/is a "frontier city"--Ottoman, Russian, Soviet, Romanian and now Ukrainian.
King makes a case that the cosmopolitan, multicultural and unruly nature of the city made it a breeding ground for culturally significant men (they are all men).
And, for me, that is where he got somewhat off-base--going into the biographies of the men even when they were far afield from Odessa.
But the history of the city is very interesting and King writes this well--giving us a feeling for how the various rulers have re-written the history over and over to reflect their version.
I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is going to visit Odessa or the Black Sea.
King makes a case that the cosmopolitan, multicultural and unruly nature of the city made it a breeding ground for culturally significant men (they are all men).
And, for me, that is where he got somewhat off-base--going into the biographies of the men even when they were far afield from Odessa.
But the history of the city is very interesting and King writes this well--giving us a feeling for how the various rulers have re-written the history over and over to reflect their version.
I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is going to visit Odessa or the Black Sea.