The Baltic: A New History of the Region and Its People

As of 2004 the 10 countries that that boarder on the Baltic Sea include Denmark, Germany, Poland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Following a series of wars, the people who settled these areas produced a patchwork of settlements of different authenticities, religions and cultures whose geographical boundaries remain in dispute. This history traces the ebb and flow of area names peoples and boarders through the centuries. For about two thirds of the book the author treats the facts and makes some observation. But in the last third of the book starting around 1920, where considerable documentation is available to the author, the history reads like an interesting novel. The result is a four-star history.

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.