I've recently read the long-awaited third volume of Patrick Leigh Fermor's narrative of his trek across Europe in the early 1930s: The Broken Road: From the Iron Gates to Mount Athos. For those who don't know these volumes, you have a treat in store, starting with A Year of Gifts and continuing with Between the Woods and the Water. They offer a door into a very different world, one somewhat less devastated by nationalism and ideology than our own, but already shadowed by the forces that would destroy it during WWII, the Cold War, and the resurgent nationalisms that followed on the fall of the Soviet empire. The first two volumes are Leigh Fermor's mature reflections on his youthful experience; the third is partly this and partly extracts from recovered journals, edited by two associates. The story is not only fascinating for its own sake; it stretches one's imagination and encourages hope to meet people maintaining humane perspectives despite great difficulties.