A review by dansumption
Black Sea by Neal Ascherson

4.0

A fascinating and at times very personal history of the area around the Black Sea - including parts of modern day Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Russia and Georgia, but with deep links to many European and Asian cultures from the Greeks to the Huns. Nations and ethnicities have met, traded and interacted here since the birth of civilisation (in fact, it was here that concepts such as "barbarian", "nation" and "refugee" first emerged), but despite being such a melting pot, neighbours often cling to divisions which are thousands of years old.