Mediterranean Winter: The Pleasures of History and Landscape in Tunisia, Sicily, Dalmatia and the Peloponnese

by Robert D. Kaplan

In Mediterranean Winter, Kaplan, bestselling author of Balkan Ghosts, relives an austere journey he took as a youth thru the off-season Mediterranean. The awnings are rolled up. Other tourists are gone. Cold damp weather takes him back to the 1950s & earlier--a golden, intensely personal age of tourism. Decades ago, He voyaged from N. Africa to Italy, Yugoslavia & Greece, enjoying the radical freedom of youth, unaccountable to time because there was always time to make up for mistakes. He recalls the journey less to look inward into his own past than to look outward in order to dissect the process of learning thru travel, in which a succession of new landscapes can lead to books & artwork never before encountered. He 1st imagines Tunis as the glow of gypsum lamps shimmering against lime-washed mosques; the city he actually discovers is even more intoxicating. He goes to the ramparts of a Turkish kasbah where Carthaginian, Roman & Byzantine forts once stood: "I could see deep into Algeria over a ribwork of hills so gaunt it seemed the wind had torn the flesh off them." In these surroundings he discovers Augustine; the courtyards of Tunis lead him to the historical writings of Ibn Khaldun. He goes to the 5th-century Greek temple at Segesta & reflects on the failed Athenian invasion of Sicily. At Hadrian's villa, "Shattered domes revealed clouds moving overhead in countless visions of eternity. It was a place made for silence & for contemplation, where you wanted a book handy. Everycorner was a cloister. No view was panoramic: each seemed deliberately composed." His bus, train & nighttime boat rides, his long walks to archeological sites lead him to subjects as varied as the Berber threat to Carthage; the Roman army's hunt for the warlord Jugurtha; the legacy of Byzantine art; the medieval Greek philosopher Georgios Gemistos Plethon, who helped kindle the Italian Renaissance; 20th-century British literary writing about Greece; & the links between Rodin & the Croatian sculptor Ivan Mestrovic. Within these pages are smells, tastes & the profundity of chance encounters. Mediterranean Winter begins in Rodin's sculpture garden in Paris, passes thru gritty streets of Marseilles, ends with a moving epiphany about Greece as the world prepares for the 2004 Summer Olympics. Mediterranean Winter is the story of an education, filled with memories & history, not the author's alone, but humanity's as well.

Genres: Travel, History, Nonfiction, Greece, Italy, Tunisia, Memoir

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Robert David Kaplan is an American journalist, currently a National Correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly. His writings have also been featured in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The New Republic, The National Interest, Foreign Affairs and The Wall Street Journal, among other newspapers and publications, and his more controversial essays about the nature of U.S. power have spurred debate in academia, the media, and the highest levels of government. A frequent theme in his work is the reemergence of cultural and historical tensions temporarily suspended during the Cold War.

Reviews

[Tom LA · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Mediterranean Winter” is a really good read. It is subtitled: “The pleasures of History and Landscape in Tunisia, Siciliy, Dalmatia and the Peloponnese”. It is a travel book that Robert Kaplan wrote in 2004 about a trip he took back in the ‘70s. The focus of the book is actually on what it says: history and landscape, and how they influenced each other.

I already knew Kaplan as I read “The Ends of the Earth”, another travel book that describes his journey from the poorest areas of West Africa (Laos, Togo, Benin) to Iran and Turkmenistan. Kaplan was a regular reporter when Bill Clinton was spotted with his book “Balkan Ghosts” tucked under his arm during his presidency. That propelled Kaplan’s popularity like a rocket, and he was suddenly advising the US government on various foreign policy matters.

I was familiar with his style, which I would define as that of an “introverted left-brainer”. Let me explain: the reality in which Kaplan seems to move in is a reality made of abstractions, landscapes, objects and historical data, rather than people. The real-life dialogue with local people is kept to a real minimum, while most of what he presents is filtered through his own eyes and through the (many!!) books he has read and that he keeps referencing.

This is fantastic for a book lover, because you get to hear about many wonderful books that you didn’t know about, but, on the other hand, it shifts the writing towards the cold and dry side. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

In Tunisia, Kaplan becomes more aware of the Roman Empire, and its vast influence on the North Africa regions. He also makes a compelling case for the history of Carthage being at the roots of Tunisia’s more modern and enlightened current politics, as opposed to other muslim countries.

In Sicily, he becomes aware of ancient Greece, and the struggle between Athens and Syracuse. And in Greece, he reflects on Byzantium.

For every city or region he visits, he gives us a summary of the main historical events that shaped that place and its people. Given the broad geographies described in the book, these summaries are necessarily sketched, but they often provide a good enough insight into the main events.

One of the things that I love the most about travel books is when the author gets his hands dirty and talks to the local people, gets their colors and perspectives about their city, country or history. Kaplan doesn’t do too much of this. He is more of an intellectual traveler, who often prefers the connection with long-dead people through books rather than the face-to-face talking and listening experience.

However, while “The Ends of the Earth” came across as too US-centric, from a cultural perspective, I preferred this book as it is free from any “I am a U.S. geo-strategic advisor” attitude. Having said that, i read that Kaplan initially was a strong supporter of the Iraq war, but he now regrets that position completely, and he now thinks the war was a mistake. So what have all those thousands of books on history and strategy taught him?

That makes me wonder: is history able to teach us anything at all, really? Is “Historia magistra vitae”?

In essence, a great travel book for lovers of literature and history. Sometimes you get the impression that Kaplan travels to complete the literary experience he's had, when he read what Flaubert, Maupassant, Gibbon, and other great writers said about certain places and their own visits there.

Almost as if those books were more real to him than the actual travel.

And hey, sometimes books do have more reality and lessons in them than a physical travel.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are a handful of great travel writers of the 20th century. In their number I would include Patrick Leigh Fermor, Freya Stark, Robert Byron, Lawrence Durrell, and Robert D Kaplan. His Mediterranean Winter: The Pleasures of History and Landscape in Tunisia, Sicily, Dalmatia and the Peloponnese is the type of travel book I love to read. It is imbued not only with the landscape, the history, and the culture of the places he visits -- but he also pays homage to the travel writers who preceded him, and he includes a delightful visit to Patrick Leigh Fermor at his villa in the Mani region of the Peloponnese.

The book is for me a keeper because of the excellent multi-page bibliography and index, increasingly a rarity in travel books. As a result, I see this book as a pointer to scores of other great books. Ah, if there were only world enough and time....

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kaplan tells the story of his travels to Tunisia, Sicily, (mainland) Italy, Yugoslavia and Greece in the 1970's, largely based upon the journals he was keeping at the time. The strength of the book lies in his fleshing out impressions of each location with historical background, without making it seem as though he's "padding out" the book; he has visited the region several times since then (he was based in Athens for years), so there's some then-and-now comparison as well. Definitely recommended.

[Katerina Tzima · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a huge fan of Kaplan and I appreciate both his writing and views. However I have to confess that I was not expecting much from this book mostly because it was written in the 1970s and early 2000s and it appeared a bit outdated. Was I wrong? Yes! This is a timeless gem worth reading today and always. Being Mediterranean (Greek), I couldn’t but marvel at the historical and intellectual depth of Kaplan’s approach of the places he visited and his insistence on the importance of geography. Reading this book gave me pure joy during the difficult times of COVID-19 and made me looking forward to more travels in the region.

[Peter Corrigan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had started this a while back and it got buried in the general book chaos of this place. I have read many of Robert D. Kaplan's books, starting back with 'Balkan Ghosts', a book that almost revolutionized how I viewed the writing of history. I consider him a genius of his craft. This book is a short but intensely erudite journey through his own past and that of the title--the Med. If you don't have the time or inclination to delve into the depths--of say Gibbon, Norwich or Braudel this concise travelogue/history/bibliographical review will fill the bill quite well, but more likely whet your appetite for additional reading and perhaps travel. Written in 2004, it recounts his travels in the region as a much younger man in the late 1970s and again in about 2002 across this endlessly fascinating region. If you don't want to travel or journey to this area after reading this then something is missing, not sure what. Yet perhaps it is enough to simply read and imagine, of which I have done plenty. Few are the 'travel' or even history books that have elicited from me an actual frisson about time and place in the way that Kaplan can and does. And when he writes with intense admiration and insight about previous authors of the region--Patrick Fermor, Rebecca West, Lawrence Durrell (I have read 'Bitter Lemons'), Paul Fussell (I read his WW2 stuff) and others you come away convinced that you MUST read some of these authors. And I will, just as soon as I get through some of the aforementioned chaos of words piled up.

[Daniel Simmons · Rating 3 out of 5]

I quite like Kaplan's work in general (my favorite is "Monsoon", which I read while touring southern Pakistan in February). He tends to quote travelers, historians, and analysts who are better writers than he is, but I admire him as a committed and passionate observer who is not content to simply let experiences wash over him; he is forever trying to untangle the backstories of what he sees and who he talks to, and then reweave them into some kind of overarching analysis of some corner of the globe oft-overlooked by the Western world. Before his jaunts later in life to war-torn Sudan, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and others, he spent a while wandering the more sedate Mediterranean as a young freelance writer, and those journeys make up the plot, such as it is, of his travel narrative here. In the aftermath of my own recent trips to Tunisia and Sicily, I thought this would provide a charming on-the-page revisitation of places that I found fascinating, and Kaplan did not disappoint (though he did not really wow, either). As a bonus, this book includes a fun digression on the monasteries of Mt. Athos, a preview of where I am hoping to go later this autumn -- pesky Covid-19 complications permitting, sigh.

[Courtney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Erudite and beautifully scripted. In this work, Kaplan makes me want to return to Greece to see what I had previously viewed with an increased sense of appreciation and to go to lands I have yet to see with open and enlightened eyes. This book is a testament to the pursuit of knowledge ad the obligation to understand history in order to prevent unnecessary mistakes from repeating themselves.

[Tony Zale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unlike tourism, travel is real work. Kaplan reminisces on his travels across Tunisia, Sicily, Croatia, and Greece, on his formative steps towards becoming a foreign correspondent. Without a strong sense of destination or background knowledge, he was off the beaten tourist path, staying in cheap unheated hotels, meeting locals and exploring lesser known ancient sites. His observations are heavily embellished with historical references - the book has a gigantic reference reading list, and the author clearly has a deep expertise in the evolution of Mediterranean civilizations. He covers the rise and fall, and conflicts between the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Normans, and Arabs. He emphasizes the continuous cultural mixing that occurred from the beginnings of civilization, only slowing down as the renaissance takes hold. Ironically, books printed with movable type contributed to cultural barriers, increasing the amount of reading material available, but siloing their knowledge to individual civilizations. Later, he points to the industrial revolution as the moment when Sicily was permanently attached to Italian culture after millenia of a close relationship with Tunisia.

This emphasis on the region’s multiculturalism seems wistfully motivated by the era of the book’s writing: immediately after the 9/11 attacks. He doesn’t dwell on this, but suggests the Islamic culture of today does not have much in common with its status as a consistent innovator in the middle ages. He also highlights the Sicilian kingdom of Roger II, a Christian with Norman ancestry. He was skeptical of the crusades, and had a court that readily accepted Arabs, where they held key positions as doctors, geographers, and mathematicians. Kaplan idealizes this as a model that should still exist today. These deep dives into unfamiliar areas of history are interesting but eventually start to overwhelm. There are many of them and my interest level decreased by the end of the book. I think this was partially just fatigue setting in, but also because the more interesting material is front loaded. The latter sections on Croatia and Greece aren’t as well developed as those on other regions.

Alongside ancient history, the author spends a little time on his personal journey to build a career from his adventuring. Coming up in the late 70s, his story feels remarkably different from what a similar backpacker might experience today. His only connection to the publications he aspired to write for was slow correspondence through international post, with weeks passing between a story’s submission and learning of its eventual acceptance or rejection. He shares anecdotes of meeting struggling older artists and the fear he might be on the same path. We can infer his success, but the book doesn’t focus on his personal arc. We don’t see the point where he’s “made it”.

This was my second reading of this book, inspired by a vacation to points around the Mediterranean. My trip was strictly mainstream-tourist in nature, but the book opened my imagination to the historic sites I visited. A good read for those interested in a unique, non-comprehensive look at the ancient western civilization story.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 4 out of 5]

When he was very young in the 1950s Robert Kaplan toured around the off-season Mediterranean. His rambling bus, train & nighttime boat rides combined with long walks to archaeological sites led him to the Berber threat to Carthage; the Roman army's hunt for the warlord Jugurtha; the legacy of Byzantine art; the medieval Greek philosopher Georgios Gemistos Plethon, who helped kindle the Italian Renaissance; 20th-century British literary writing about Greece; and the links between Rodin & the Croatian sculptor Ivan Mestrovic. Within these pages are smells, tastes and profound chance encounters. One of the most memorable is the encounter in the nearly empty and almost ruinous Saint Panteleimon Monastery at Mount Athos where he met a few young monks descended from amongst those who made up the vast post 1917 Russian diaspora who had no doubt communism would fall, the Russian orthodox church would rise and in the sanctity of the Tsar. In the 1950s such ideas were not even eccentric, they were crazy. But it all came to pass and the Saint Panteleimon Monastery is thriving, and where is the Soviet Union?

Mediterranean Winter begins in Rodin's sculpture garden in Paris, passes thru gritty streets of Marseilles, ends with a moving epiphany about Greece as the world prepares for the 2004 Summer Olympics. Mediterranean Winter is the story of an education, filled with memories & history, not the author's alone, but humanity's as well.

[Karina Samyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Die winter leerde ik dat het verleden het beginpunt is van elke ramp, waar en wanneer die zich voordoet. Zo vond de toestand van Tunesië zijn oorsprong in de Oudheid."
Wat hou ik van Kaplan! Zijn eruditie, zijn belezenheid. Hem lezen is het heden begrijpen door terug te gaan in de geschiedenis. Wat is er belangrijker dan geschiedenis ? De spiegel die ons onze wereld doet begrijpen. Het zou op scholen het hoofdvak moeten worden.
In dit boek beschrijft hij zijn reizen als twintiger tijdens een winter in de Middellandse Zee van Tunesië, over Silicië, Dalmatië en Griekenland. Jaren later keert hij er terug.
Hij refereert, net als in zijn andere boeken, naar andere schrijvers, antieke of moderne, waaraan hij zich laaft, net als wij ons laven aan zijn boeken.

[Adrian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert D. Kaplan's unique style of historical travel writing is finely demonstrated in this heartfelt volume. While the setting is slightly more offbeat and different from his previous works, he nonetheless delivers in his usual way, albeit with a slightly different setting.
For those familiar with Kaplan's works, he employs his adept way of describing places through feeling, and the small features that give them their unique characteristics. However, this is coupled with the historical and cultural insight to the places, as one learns their unique character, and the social and political circumstances that gave them their genesis.
The places under discussion are Tunisia, Sicily, Greece, and Croatia, and couple with them is the historical insight into Carthage, the Punic Wars, and the ever changing power structure of the Mediterranean.
The most important thing the reader takes home from this book is how cultures have been borrowed, how Greek culture has transplanted to Sicily, once home of Phoenician, and then Moor, then Norman, and now Italian, how Roman civilization can be found in Tunisia, how the Mediterranean is a true cultural melting pot.
Kaplan has a unique method of retelling history, a method that is accessible to those who (unlike myself) do not have time for long winded historical accounts. Instead, through Kaplan, one lives history, and the readers live it with him.

[George Siehl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Journalist Kaplan brings to this travel book, as he does to all of his work, a serious intellect with a firm grounding in geography and deep history. Here he details his travels as a youth in Mediterranean countries--Tunisia, Sicily, Dalmatia and Greece--in the 1970s, and again a quarter century later. This book is rich in ancient history, landscape impressions, cultural insights, and reference to other books on the region he has valued. As well, he offers frequent observations on the importance and value of travel to the individual. Any traveler, actual or armchair, will enjoy sharing this trip with Kaplan. Definitely not a shopping and restaurant guide style travel book, but the real thing.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a beautiful book. Kaplan's seamless prose, intertwined with a well-researched history of the Mediterranean world, make this book a treat to read. This is definitely a travel book to savor. I will definitely be reading more of his works.

[Carlos Vasconcelos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kaplan at his most poetic. Beautifully written, filled with philosophical annotations that he relates to the places he traveled trough.

[Jose · Rating 5 out of 5]

I gave this book five stars because is more a history book than a travel book , you find so much references for in yourself in history of the Mediterranean .

[Rebecca Wilkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am really captivated by Kaplan's books. This one is done as a memory of his first travels in Europe in the mid 70's but with an update of his return visits to some of these places over the years. Here he focuses on Tunisia and I am reminded of the scene in Patton where he reminisces about fighting with the Romans and Kaplan brings up all of that ancient history as he moves about the country. Later his high spot in Italy is Hadrian's Villa outside of Rome. It wasn't on my tour but sounds like an interesting place to visit with a sort of Hearst Castle look from the photos online. Kaplan gives us more insight and history about Hadrian whose wall I only recently encountered. Then he is off to the Adriatic to Split and Dubrovnik which I could be sailing with Koz to this month if I had desired. But he ends in Greece and visits a 90-year-old British writer named Patrick Leigh Fermor (said to be a combination Indiana Jones, James Bond and Graham Greene) whose home at Kardamyli was used in the movie Before Midnight that I loved. Kaplan was taken with the home too and we book lovers would love to be surrounded by our books in such a setting when in our 90's. A quote: "an explorer seeks the undiscovered, a traveler that which has been discovered by the mind working in history and the tourist that which has been discovered for him by entrepreneurship and prepared for him by the arts of mass publicity." I would like to be more of a traveler than tourist but here I am reading the history after the trips not before. It is more fun to be seeking something you have read about or studied than to just show up and be shown what someone else decides is relevant. Another quote: "travel is where we truly meet ourselves. We remember what we must in order to endure. That is why so much of commonplace existence is forgotten, while our journeys never are."

[Dan Downing · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the great joys offered by life: exploration, going forth to new vistas, unknown territory. Mr. Kaplan discusses the explorer, the traveler, the tourist, and concludes that the traveler, by definition, faces difficulties. The word is related to 'travail'. For my part, I have chosen 'tourist' in the wider world, and have suffered enough under that title. Bad food, or none. Long waits (all waits are long in my book), cramped seating and so on. Ah, but I do get to explore the known, gazing upon my shelves, occasionally, inexplicably, finding a gem I have been overlooking for years.
In the time since I put "Mediterranean Winter" on the shelf, I have read three newer volumes of Kaplan's work and a few back titles. I know I am sitting on "The Revenge of Geography" but overlooked the present volume. I'm delighted to have noticed it and read it.
In the 1970s Robert Kaplan left the U.S. with a one-way ticket and a bit of cash, off to see more of the world. As he descended from France to the Med, he began to write 'travel' stories and submit them to magazines. No email, no nothing compared to today, except stamps and envelopes. Still, he found checks in post office boxes now and then as he made the journey described here. In addition to the description of his travels at the time, we are treated to delicious tidbits of history, from the dim reaches of the deep B.C. to modern times, Kaplan has researched or witnessed a lot of our past. His travelogue is immensely enriched by the backstories and by the insights earned between visits. But it was on the first journey that he discerned that travel writing could be more than recommending bars and hotels. We who travel by his side via the pages of his books reap satisfying rewards.
Recommended.

[Lir S · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting book about the author's travels through Tunisia, Sicily, Croatia, and Greece.

The book was written based on notes taken over 20 years before he actually wrote.

It is a great exercise in memory evolution, laced together with a great deal of intellectual curiosity

My only criticism is, the author attempts to address too much history in a short book. The kingdoms that came and went over the millenia start to get a little overwhelming.

Some of the highlights for me are the descriptions of Dubrovnik before and after communism, the island of Athos, and Sicily which I plan to visit at some point. Tunisia hasn't seemed safe since #arabspring.

[Emiel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Leuk boek waarin Kaplan vertelt over de geschiedenis van het gebied rond de Middellandse Zee op basis van een reis die hij in de jaren zeventig in dat gebied gemaakt heeft. De verhalen die Kaplan vertelt over de geschiedenis van het Romeinse Rijk of de rijken daarvoor vond ik heel erg interessant en leuk om te lezen. Sommige meer filosofische betogen waren voor mij lastiger om doorheen te komen. Een interessant boek voor iedereen die geïnteresseerd is in reizen in combinatie met geschiedenis en cultuur.

[Juan Carlos · Rating 4 out of 5]

El bueno de Robert se vino de "erasmus" en su juventud para realizar un viaje por el mediterráneo en ... invierno. El viaje en sí es una joya que discurre principalmente por Túnez, Sicilia, la costa Dalmata y Grecia, vamos ¡una autentica maravilla! Con una prosa solvente nos traslada su mirada sobre lo que ve y siente en estos lugares, casi siempre tomando como punto de partida la historia de estos territorios. Todo el conjunto esta sazonado con un una pizca de literatura, política, religión, filosofía y arte. El plato resulta magnífico.

[Carmen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kaplan shares his experiences over several decades entwining history, art, literature and personal experiences. Quite a thrill to read. I enjoy reading someone who can clearly explain the idiom "history repeats itself". I have some new places on my "to visit" list.

[Raina · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few beautiful sentences. Some very interesting historical information, but the information was disjointed and I felt like it wasn't complete, even as an overview of the region. Disappointing that the book covers so little of the Mediterranean region.

[Patrick Tarbox · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars, rounded by to 5. This was my first time reading Kaplan and I really enjoyed it. He does a tremendous job capturing the scenes and the people while mixing in history (the 0.5 down is because the history is very heavy, probably too much).

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read, though frustrating for his elevation of ancient Greece in a place like Tunisia above anything current.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Old and somewhat outdated but interesting nonetheless.

[Ricardo · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Grace · Rating 1 out of 5]

Way too academic for me.

[Will Shoemaker · Rating 1 out of 5]

What Is to Be Done, about Robert Kaplan?

[Gabriella Gricius · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why Read: As anyone who knows me well knows, I’m a huge Robert Kaplan and Travel Book fan. I had been searching for Mediterranean Winter for a very long time. It never appealed to me in Kindle format (much as I love the convenience of ereading). So luckily, I found it in Marco Polo Library (whew).

Review: It’s hard to put into words exactly how much I loved this book. I generally love travelogues, so it was no surprise to me as my heart began to pound upon reading the first chapter. The Mediterranean Ocean is a historical powerhouse that brought clashes among the different empires that ruled in their heyday, the Romans, Syracusen, and the Spartans. And Kaplan does that 'thing' that he does best.
Combining history, personal reflection and travel. That is what he does. Throughout the book, I found myself continuously surprised of really how much I loved this piece of history, and really how little I knew of it. American history classes and World history don't place high premiums on ancient history anymore. The major civilizations and those moments in history, like the rise of Christianity, the Athenian Fall from Grace, and the smaller changes that develop into world-changing ideas - they all make an appearance.

Kaplan seems to have some sort of magical prowess, that I'm caught spellbound and navigated so smoothly through the decades and centuries of the Peloponnese History without any effort on my part at all. The satisfying combination of traveling in the 70s vs. the globalized hegemony of today also makes an appearance, and it couldn't be better placed.

If you are a history buff, travel buff or really are looking for something different - I would recommend this book to anyone. It has a bit of everything: reflection on today's world, history of the past and the evolution travel. There's no author I love more, and there's no book I'm happier to give a 5/5 Stars to.

[Erik Graff · Rating 2 out of 5]

If able, I travel to the Bay area every year, being picked up at either the Oakland or San Francisco airports by Tom Miley. Usually, after a few days at his home in the city, we drive up to his mountain home between Big Trees State Park and Lake Alpine, there to be joined by his brother Michael. A light traveller, I bring no more than one book with me for the flight, a book I can pass on to Tom. Afterwards I count on his library, and later, in Sonoma, on Michael's.

This year, knowing my need, Tom brought up books from his downstairs bedroom which he estimated I might like. Some I had already read. The rest were travel books by Robert D. Kaplan, only one of which I'd previously essayed, that being his Balkan Ghosts. Of this set I picked Mediterranean Winter as it promised to deal prominently with Yugoslavia, Italy and Greece, favored places for me, and their histories.

I was disappointed. Kaplan's historical discurses were too brief, too shallow, as if he'd gotten his material from Wikipedia. Further, because this was billed as a memoir of youthful travels in the 1970s, I was hoping for some of the sturm und drang of young adulthood, some insight into the personality of the eager traveller. Instead of this, however, I got mere glimpses, glimpses merely of what he gimpsed. While he makes third person references to one or more companions, presumably including a girlfriend, these others and his relations with them are kept entirely out of the picture. On whole, lots of shallow prettiness and little substance so far as I was concerned.