Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Between the Woods and the Water: On Foot to Constantinople: From the Middle Danube to the Iron Gates by Patrick Leigh Fermor

1 review

funktious's review against another edition

adventurous informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

3.5

I enjoyed this a bit less than the first volume - I think you can tell that this one was written at more of a remove with less written records to go on. But still an enjoyable look at a world that was about to vanish, even if neither the author nor the people he writes about realised. On the one hand you have the nobility / upper classes who have been living the same lives in their stately homes and estates for generations, but who will shortly have the war and then communism to contend with. And then you have the peasantry that the author encounters; shepherds, woodcutters, farmers, whose lives will also be affected by the war and then industrialisation. So it’s really interesting to read about those lives and experiences, if heartbreaking to think about what was coming for some of them, particularly the Jewish people he meets.

Definitely some racism about Gypsy / Roma people to contend with, and in general I found the authors obsession with 'defining' the racial / tribal background of the people he meets a bit difficult to swallow, again, knowing what’s about to happen in Europe. I get that he’s coming at it from a 'classical' perspective, but it’s still part of the same poison that has led to so many deaths and displacements. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Racism