



In Europe's Shadow
Two Cold Wars and a Thirty-Year Journey Through Romania and Beyond
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4.5 • 4 Ratings
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
“Sweeping and replete with alluring detail . . . [a] haunting yet ultimately optimistic examination of the human condition as found in Romania.”—Alison Smale, The New York Times Book Review
From the New York Times bestselling author Robert D. Kaplan, named one of the world’s Top 100 Global Thinkers by Foreign Policy magazine, comes a riveting journey through one of Europe’s frontier countries—and a potent examination of the forces that will determine Europe’s fate in the postmodern age.
Robert Kaplan first visited Romania in the 1970s, when he was a young journalist and the country was a bleak Communist backwater. It was one of the darkest corners of Europe, but few Westerners were paying attention. What ensued was a lifelong obsession with a critical, often overlooked country—a country that, today, is key to understanding the current threat that Russia poses to Europe. In Europe’s Shadow is a vivid blend of memoir, travelogue, journalism, and history, a masterly work thirty years in the making—the story of a journalist coming of age, and a country struggling to do the same. Through the lens of one country, Kaplan examines larger questions of geography, imperialism, the role of fate in international relations, the Cold War, the Holocaust, and more.
Here Kaplan illuminates the fusion of the Latin West and the Greek East that created Romania, the country that gave rise to Ion Antonescu, Hitler’s chief foreign accomplice during World War II, and the country that was home to the most brutal strain of Communism under Nicolae Ceaușescu. Romania past and present are rendered in cinematic prose: the ashen faces of citizens waiting in bread lines in Cold War–era Bucharest; the Bărăgan Steppe, laid bare by centuries of foreign invasion; the grim labor camps of the Black Sea Canal; the majestic Gothic church spires of Transylvania and Maramureş. Kaplan finds himself in dialogue with the great thinkers of the past, and with the Romanians of today, the philosophers, priests, and politicians—those who struggle to keep the flame of humanism alive in the era of a resurgent Russia.
Upon his return to Romania in 2013 and 2014, Kaplan found the country transformed yet again—now a traveler’s destination shaped by Western tastes, yet still emerging from the long shadows of Hitler and Stalin. In Europe’s Shadow is the story of an ideological and geographic frontier—and the book you must read in order to truly understand the crisis Europe faces, from Russia and from within.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this insightful fusion of history, travelogue, memoir, and contemporary analysis, Kaplan (The Revenge of Geography), a journalist and foreign affairs writer, recounts his travels through Romania and other parts of Central and Eastern Europe. Kaplan has long been captivated by Romania, inspired by the oft-neglected country's culture and history as well as its recurring "spiritual, military, and political domination by great powers." He traces the Romanian lands' tragic history from antiquity to the present, with a focus on the tumultuous 20th century, during which it suffered a chilling progression of "territorial dismemberment, occupation, monarchy, military dictatorship, fascism, and Communism." Kaplan shares travel anecdotes and ruminations on architecture, religion, literature, historical works, and geography identifying the latter as a primary cause of the country's troubles. He also examines Russia's contemporary role in the region, including regional dependence on Russian energy, Vladimir Putin's "vulgar, exclusivist nationalism," and revanchist behavior in Ukraine, which has ushered in a new, unsettling geopolitical age that has been referred to as a "new Cold War." Despite the lack of a clear focus and the somewhat incoherent organization, this is a well-written, intriguing, and informative book. Maps & photos.