كتاب جيد

I read this one little by little, savoring John Julius Norwich's fluent prose and lively commentary on European history as it impinged on those countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa bordering on the Mediterranean, the "middle sea." I had previously read his long narrative history of the The Normans in Sicily: The Normans in the South 1016-1130 and the Kingdom in the Sun 1130-1194, but he is probably best known for his histories of Byzantium and of Venice. All of these specialties of his got their due attention in this book, but he cast light on other topics such as Napoleon's ill-fated foray into Egypt and the breakup of empires after World War I. Norwich is in some ways idiosyncratic and anecdotal in his approach--he is a writer, not an academic historian--but throughout offers a memorable perspective in a skillful storytelling voice--a modern bard of history.

Здесь есть то, чем славится Норвич - множество интересных фактов, нескучная подача - разумный баланс между наукой и популярность. Короче говоря, хорошая научно-популярная книга.
Почему хорошая, но не отличная? Во-первых, слишком большой объем. Все-таки история пускай и одного региона, с Древнего Египта до междувоенного мира - это слишком обширно. В результате - 400 с небольшим мест Киндла на всю Древнюю Грецию. Во-вторых (возможно это следствие первого) - множество ошибок, как в датах, так в фактах. Сербия, соблюдающая нейтралитет до высадки Антанты на Галлиполи - один из запомнившихся мне факапов автора. И наконец, Норвич все же больше специалист по Италии и Венеции. Поэтому чувствуется некий перекос в сторону событий, связанных с "сапогом" и Венецией.
В итоге, книга получилась хорошая (лучше ее на эту тему не видел), но на пятерку не тянет.

Norwich is a charming writer and a master of the material, especially the complicated dynastic ins and outs and all the national catastrophes that start when some feckless imbecile inherits a throne. Nevertheless, the book is somewhat of a disappointment overall. It does not integrate the various stories into a history of the Mediterranean as a whole. Rather, it gives accounts (well-written ones, to be sure) of various more or less well-known Mediterranean episodes in the histories of the surrounding nations. Antiquity is covered somewhat briefly, but we get the Crusades, the fall of Constantinople, the Hospitallers' heroic defense of Rhodes and then of Malta, Venices's long and valiant and finally unsuccessful defense of the Greek islands against the Ottoman tide, the centuries-long contest between the French, the Austrians, and the Italians for the control of northern Italy, the War of the Sicilian Vespers, Napoleon's Egyptian expedition, the Carlist wars in Spain, the Gallipoli campaign. For several of the stories Norwich confesses to "shamelessly" drawing from others' secondary histories. There is no end or conclusion worthy of a 667-page book; it simply terminates arbitrarily with the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I.