This book review was written by Eugene Kernes
“Peoples who live in communion with other peoples, for a hundred or a thousand years, do not always like them – may, in fact, have always disliked them. As individuals, ‘the others’ are not strangers but neighbours, often friends. But my sense of Black Sea life, a sad one, is that latent mistrust between different cultures is immortal.” – Neal Ascherson, Introduction, Page 9
“All knowledge about the Scythians, as it accumulates, has undermined the proposition that the peoples of the Black Sea steppe were primitive and barbarous, and the conclusion that nomadism was a backward form of existence.” – Neal Ascherson, Chapter Two, Page 76
“This is a dilemma as old as the social sciences – which are not very old, but already battle-scarred. It sounds like a dispute over professional ethics, but it is really an argument about cognition. One side defends the idea that “facts speak,” and that the scholar must therefore listen to them in impartial silence. The other side retorts that facts say almost anything the investigator wants, and that what he hears in the silence is no more than the mutter of his own unacknowledged prejudices.” – Neal Ascherson, Chapter Seven, Page 207
Overview:
The Black Sea is not just a composition of various cultures,
but has a character of its own. Although
overfished, the Black Sea was abundant in fish, which provided wealth for the
communities that used it. The Black Sea
has many rivers draining into it, and with so much fresh water, that the
bacterial biochemical process creates a deadly residual gas. The Black Sea witnessed the rise and fall of
many peoples, and empires. Witnessed how
they would treat each other. How they
mistreated each other. These were
diverse people, diverse neighbors. Saw
each other as different. Saw the
differences as inferiorities. Stories
passed down claimed their own superiority over the others. But as archaeological evidence is gathered,
the information threatens the inferiority claims. For whether the society was deemed civilized
or barbarous, settled or nomadic, they were able to develop wealth and military
capabilities.
Caveats?
The writing can be a little
difficult. The writing quickly moves
between different peoples and eras. This
is a diverse history, representing many different people. But there is not much on each society. This is an introduction to many peoples, but
to get an understanding of their culture would require more research.
