The Baltic

Though published in 2006, The Baltic seems older, even old-fashioned, largely because of a conventional focus on war, diplomacy and economics. Yet it clearly shows that, as a major communication route and contact zone with desirable natural rescources, the Baltic has long generated struggles for control. Social and cultural history get relatively short shrift, but the book is still quite worthwhile. Palmer displays another old-school virtue: he writes well, sometimes superbly. As for content, Palmer makes two crucial points effectively, so that The Batlic nicely supplements national narratives. First, he insists that the history of "the Baltic" must go beyond simply covering the three republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Thus the book encompasses all countries bordering the sea, giving readers proper context for the entire region. Second, he argues crucially that despite repeated efforts by various Baltic powers over centuries, no state has ever controlled the entire region. If The Baltic appeared now, Palmer would surely view the most recent criminal Russian effort to attain hegemony as fated to fail like all the others. Let us hope!

The Baltic Sea is cold, but its history has often run red-hot, as historian Alan Palmer makes clear in his book "The Baltic." Palmer, a prolific, Oxford-educated British historian, wishes to give the 21st-century reader "A New History of the Region and Its People" (the book's subtitle). He does so in a thorough and conscientious manner, covering the Baltic region's history from the earliest known human habitation through the year 2004.The Baltic region, as Palmer defines it, comprises the modern nations of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, and Russia, as well as all of the no-longer-extant societies that once occupied Baltic shores - places like Pomerania, East Prussia, Courland, and Livonia. Palmer writes history in a relatively old-school style, with an emphasis on political and military conflict, and after a while one Great Northern War may sound like another. Yet Palmer knows how to tell a story with verve and detail, as when he describes the extraordinary circumstances under which Peter the Great founded the city of Saint Petersburg, a planned capital unlike any other, "built on swampy ground by forced labour that cost the lives of at least 30,000 men...in newly conquered territory at the height of a war in which the odds remained heavily stacked against their country" (p. 132).For me, the most interesting parts of the book were those that focused upon the 20th century, the two World Wars, and the Cold War. It is clear that Palmer is talking about his own experience and observation when he writes about Polish leader Joseph Beck visiting the British Prime Minister in March of 1939: "A twelve-year-old schoolboy happened to be in Downing Street as the Polish statesman's car turned into the Foreign Office that morning; the contented superiority of Beck's cold smile remains etched in memory even today" (p. 318). And perhaps because I was reading "The Baltic" while traveling in the Baltic States, seeing the former KGB headquarters sites in Tallinn and Vilnius, I was particularly moved by Palmer's description of the manner in which Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania gained their freedom from Soviet occupation as "[t]he Baltic way of winning independence" (p. 400).A number of the questions that Palmer poses at the end of this 2005-06 book seem downright prescient now, in 2014, given the present political situation in parts of Eastern Europe: "Have the Baltic republics the wisdom and patience to integrate their Russian and Ukrainian minorities? What future has the Baltic if a Russian nationalist comes to power in Moscow? Is the bear tamed or merely sleeping?" (p. 406) I hope that Palmer is right when he suggests that "it is reasonable...to be optimistic" (p. 406), and I do agree with him that "A Baltic that is at peace with itself holds out for Europe the prospect of unity and understanding" (p. 406). I just hope that Vladimir Putin gets that memo - and that he passes it on to the individuals currently styling themselves the "Donetsk People's Republic."Alan Palmer's "The Baltic" contains three helpful maps, but might have benefited from illustrations such as paintings or photographs of different people or events involved in the history of the Baltic. (The photograph on the cover, of Helsinki harbor on a long winter night, *is* a nice touch.) Still, for any reader interested in this important region of Europe, "The Baltic" is a thorough, detailed, and helpful study.

The book is a concise history of the entire Baltic region, not a travel guide to what we now call the "Baltic States." As such, it's more about the imperial ambitions of Sweden, Poland, Germany and (especially) Russia than it is about architecture in Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius. Don't buy this book expecting intimate histories of these three capitals, and keep in mind that the "Baltic" includes Sweden, Finland and Denmark, as well as northern Poland and Germany. The book is about how imperial powers strove, ultimately unsuccessfully, to acquire and assimilate local cultures. Each conqueror left its imprint on the region. In this context it works well. Beware that by necessity of past events, the book focuses heavily on military engagement, political strategy, commercial alliance, and perhaps less than it should on cultural development. The tenuous balance of the Reformation, with poles in Denmark and Poland, figures prominently in the narrative. All in all, it's a challenging and rewarding history of this interesting and important European region, written for the curious reader with appreciation for detail.

Bought "The Baltic" because we will be taking a cruise in the region early this summer. I have little to no background history of this region, but am familiar with some of the cities we will visit.Mr. Palmer is such a gifted writer of history that you learn not in sips but big gulps. The first 20 pages of this book will tell you more about the Baltic than you will learn in a semester College course. That is because history courses are notoriously lots of facts with no binding (nothing to hold them together in ones memory.) Mr. Palmer weaves the facts together into a fabric that one can retain and I am forever grateful for that.I purchased the "Twilight of the Habsburgs" after touring Budapest, Vienna, and Prague and wished I had read it first. It was so well written and again I could retain information because the author knows how to weave facts together in such an interesting manner.Anywhere I travel from now on I will see if Alan Palmer has written a book that I can read first about the area as it will enhance the trip and make it much more meaningful.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book - it has just the right amount of detail for the scope of the content. I had no idea that Christendom had mounted a 'northern crusade' and really enjoyed learning about the history of the Hanseatic League and the Scandinavian Kingdoms. Russia, Finland and the Baltic republics are also (obviously) covered, as is the history of Prussia and Poland - each set in the context of the others.The focus is primarily on the political / dynastic and military history, although good, if brief coverage is also given to the geography of the region and discussion of economic history and trade is given ample attention. Perhaps the content is a bit lacking in linguistic and cultural history, although the description of the role played by musical tradition in keeping suppressed national consciousness alive was interesting to learn about.I have read a few other books about the WW2 and post-war history of eastern Europe, which meant that I wasn't quite as glued to the later chapters as I might otherwise have been, but this material is also covered very well.This is the second history of a sea that I've read - 'The Black Sea: a History' by Charles King being the other - and I highly recommend each. The concept works really well.

There is a huge amount of knowledge here, but I found it quite hard work. There are so many unfamiliar names of people and places that a great deal of background reading was required.