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Along the Amber Route
Shortlisted for the Stanford Dolman Award 2021
Shortlisted for the Bookmark Book Festival’s Book of the Year Award 2020
Longlisted for the Wingate Award 2021
Light, portable and high in value, amber is an ideal commodity for long-distance trade. An Amber Route, comparable to the Silk Road, ran from the Baltic to the Mediterranean for thousands of years.
C.J. Schüler followed this route by bus, train and boat for 2,500 kilometres along river valleys, forest paths and Roman roads. His journey traces both the greatest fault lines of European geopolitics and his own family’s history. As he explores lands contested by Romans and Vandals, Teutons and Slavs, lost empires and
the former Iron Curtain, Schüler must also confront his own family history, Nazism and the Holocaust.
Shortlisted for the Bookmark Book Festival’s Book of the Year Award 2020
Longlisted for the Wingate Award 2021
Light, portable and high in value, amber is an ideal commodity for long-distance trade. An Amber Route, comparable to the Silk Road, ran from the Baltic to the Mediterranean for thousands of years.
C.J. Schüler followed this route by bus, train and boat for 2,500 kilometres along river valleys, forest paths and Roman roads. His journey traces both the greatest fault lines of European geopolitics and his own family’s history. As he explores lands contested by Romans and Vandals, Teutons and Slavs, lost empires and
the former Iron Curtain, Schüler must also confront his own family history, Nazism and the Holocaust.
- GenresTravelNonfictionHistory
352 pages, Hardcover
First published February 27, 2020
11 people are currently reading
118 people want to read
About the author
C.J. Schüler
8 books8 followersC.J. Schüler's latest book, The Wood That Built London, a history of the woodland that once covered much of South London, is published by Sandstone Press on 7 October 2021. His travelogue Along the Amber Route (also from Sandstone), hailed as ‘timely and powerful’ by the Financial Times on its publication in February 2020, was shortlisted for Stanford Dolman Award and longlisted for the Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Prize.. He is the author of three illustrated histories of cartography: Mapping the World, Mapping the City, and Mapping the Sea and Stars, (Éditions Place des Victoires/Frechmann) and co-author of the best-selling Traveller’s Atlas, (Barron, 1999). His history of the Authors’ Club of London, Writers, Lovers, Soldiers, Spies, was published in 2016 to critical acclaim. He has also written on literature, travel and the arts for The Independent, The Tablet, the Financial Times, and Slightly Foxed magazine.
Since graduating from Oxford University with a degree in English Language and Literature, he has worked in publishing and journalism, serving on the staff of The Independent, and the Rough Guides, and is now a freelance editor and copywriter. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 2011, and was chairman of the Authors’ Club from 2008 to 2015. He lives in South London with his wife, and is a conservation volunteer at his local nature reserve.
Since graduating from Oxford University with a degree in English Language and Literature, he has worked in publishing and journalism, serving on the staff of The Independent, and the Rough Guides, and is now a freelance editor and copywriter. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 2011, and was chairman of the Authors’ Club from 2008 to 2015. He lives in South London with his wife, and is a conservation volunteer at his local nature reserve.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
March 22, 2020
Amber has captivated people for the past 12,000 years. The golden coloured fossilised tree resins were first made into beads in the Neolithic time and have been highly sought after ever since. The lumps of amber can be cut and polished and turned into beautiful jewellery. Because of its value it has been highly sought after and as it doesn’t weight much it has been easy to transport for trade.
Since the Roman times, there has been a route from the north of Europe that bought this precious material from the beaches of the Baltic Sea all the way down to the Mediterranean. This is the beginning of a 2500 kilometre journey that will take him from the northern shores of Europe where a lot of the amber can be picked off the beaches of the Baltic Sea if you have sharp enough eyes to spot it.
Heading along the Baltic Coast, he passes through the countries of Estonia, Latvia, briefly into Russia and then Lithuania. While he is that far north, he has a go at finding it on those beaches though takes a sharp eye and after spending a little while looking, Schüler gets his eye in and finds his first piece, a cylinder about the size of a fingernail that still had an impression of the bark of the tree it came from 50 million years ago.
While in Russia he goes to visit the Amber Room in the Catherin Palace in St Petersburg. This is a replica of the original room which was looted in World War II and taken to Königsberg. It was thought to have been damaged when bombed, but there were rumours that it might have survived. This magnificent room glows in the light.
Turning inland the journey takes him to Poland next. There are two main routes here that archaeological evidence suggests could have been in use at the same time. He is bowled over by the amber collection in Marienburg which has pieces that go back to 2000bc but the centrepiece is the Renaissance and Baroque collections. In the Czech Republic, he heads to the town of Olomouc where he is hoping to find more amber in the museum.
Just over the border into Hungary, he is in the city of Sopron to visit the city museum in Fabricius House where they have some finely carved amber which showed that the raw amber that had headed south would work its way back north as finished pieces. His journey is almost at an end as he approaches southern Europe, where there are still people creating jewellery from amber.
I really liked this book following alongside Schüler down the Amber Route. It was good to read about very different parts of Europe than I usually do. Woven throughout the book is his own personal family history, of relatives who survived the holocaust in the second world war and tribute to those that tragically didn’t. Coupled with that is a fascinating history over 2000 years of the people and places that were obsessed with this precious material. If there was one tiny flaw, I would have liked to have had some photos included of the places that he visits.
Since the Roman times, there has been a route from the north of Europe that bought this precious material from the beaches of the Baltic Sea all the way down to the Mediterranean. This is the beginning of a 2500 kilometre journey that will take him from the northern shores of Europe where a lot of the amber can be picked off the beaches of the Baltic Sea if you have sharp enough eyes to spot it.
Heading along the Baltic Coast, he passes through the countries of Estonia, Latvia, briefly into Russia and then Lithuania. While he is that far north, he has a go at finding it on those beaches though takes a sharp eye and after spending a little while looking, Schüler gets his eye in and finds his first piece, a cylinder about the size of a fingernail that still had an impression of the bark of the tree it came from 50 million years ago.
While in Russia he goes to visit the Amber Room in the Catherin Palace in St Petersburg. This is a replica of the original room which was looted in World War II and taken to Königsberg. It was thought to have been damaged when bombed, but there were rumours that it might have survived. This magnificent room glows in the light.
Turning inland the journey takes him to Poland next. There are two main routes here that archaeological evidence suggests could have been in use at the same time. He is bowled over by the amber collection in Marienburg which has pieces that go back to 2000bc but the centrepiece is the Renaissance and Baroque collections. In the Czech Republic, he heads to the town of Olomouc where he is hoping to find more amber in the museum.
Just over the border into Hungary, he is in the city of Sopron to visit the city museum in Fabricius House where they have some finely carved amber which showed that the raw amber that had headed south would work its way back north as finished pieces. His journey is almost at an end as he approaches southern Europe, where there are still people creating jewellery from amber.
I really liked this book following alongside Schüler down the Amber Route. It was good to read about very different parts of Europe than I usually do. Woven throughout the book is his own personal family history, of relatives who survived the holocaust in the second world war and tribute to those that tragically didn’t. Coupled with that is a fascinating history over 2000 years of the people and places that were obsessed with this precious material. If there was one tiny flaw, I would have liked to have had some photos included of the places that he visits.
March 15, 2022
Very well done. In addition to learning about the amber trade commencing from prehistoric times, I also very much enjoyed learning about the author's jewish ancestors and their experiences and movements throughout out Europe as they dovetailed his route from the Baltics to Venice.
June 25, 2022
I had heard of amber before, all thanks to the mighty Jurassic Park, but I’ve never heard of the Amber Route, I couldn’t even hazard a guess as to it’s location. As soon as I saw the map I knew I had to read this book, an area of the world I have barely read about.
This was a fascinating read, Schüler takes the reader across present borders and past borders whilst tracing the route that the amber trade used, all the time keeping an eagle eye for any bits of amber he can find on beaches. During this journey he shares with us the history of the area, so much turmoil going all the way back to Roman times, it is incredible just how much conflict there has been. During this trip Schüler tries to trace his family, looking for their legacy, where they lived and worked before they had to flee during WWII, the stories he shares are heart-breaking, there is no place on the route that escaped this conflict and it didn’t matter how many times Schüler revealed the damage and deaths it never failed to hit you in the pit of your stomach.
One of the most interesting parts of the book was the famous Russian Amber Room, still missing since WWII, Schüler gives an interesting account about how it was made, whom made it and who for, how it was moved around and all about the remade panels currently in their place. It is almost a mini-book within the main book.
Schüler has a vast knowledge about music from this era, I’m always impressed when somebody is able to identify a piece of classical music but to identify a piece that a park bench is playing??? I doff my hat to you Mr. Schüler very impressive. He also discusses the architecture that can be scene, describing what is there currently and comparing it to what was there before it was destroyed during one of the many conflicts in the region.
I felt this book was missing one thing, locals, whilst Schüler does meet the locals he doesn’t share much of the conversations he must have had. Apart from this one bit this was a fantastic read, so much information within these pages, this is one of those books that will sit on my shelf and be dipped in and out of when I need to find a fact to win an argument.
Blog review: https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2022...
This was a fascinating read, Schüler takes the reader across present borders and past borders whilst tracing the route that the amber trade used, all the time keeping an eagle eye for any bits of amber he can find on beaches. During this journey he shares with us the history of the area, so much turmoil going all the way back to Roman times, it is incredible just how much conflict there has been. During this trip Schüler tries to trace his family, looking for their legacy, where they lived and worked before they had to flee during WWII, the stories he shares are heart-breaking, there is no place on the route that escaped this conflict and it didn’t matter how many times Schüler revealed the damage and deaths it never failed to hit you in the pit of your stomach.
One of the most interesting parts of the book was the famous Russian Amber Room, still missing since WWII, Schüler gives an interesting account about how it was made, whom made it and who for, how it was moved around and all about the remade panels currently in their place. It is almost a mini-book within the main book.
Schüler has a vast knowledge about music from this era, I’m always impressed when somebody is able to identify a piece of classical music but to identify a piece that a park bench is playing??? I doff my hat to you Mr. Schüler very impressive. He also discusses the architecture that can be scene, describing what is there currently and comparing it to what was there before it was destroyed during one of the many conflicts in the region.
I felt this book was missing one thing, locals, whilst Schüler does meet the locals he doesn’t share much of the conversations he must have had. Apart from this one bit this was a fantastic read, so much information within these pages, this is one of those books that will sit on my shelf and be dipped in and out of when I need to find a fact to win an argument.
Blog review: https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2022...
March 18, 2024
I really enjoyed this. There is a lot of history amongst the travel writing and it could get a bit dry and confusing on occasion but I mainly blame that on my lack of knowledge and context rather than anything else. I love learning more about this part of the world and this was a great addition to books on the subject.
May 23, 2022
Along the Amber Route traces C.J. Schüler’s journey down one of Europe’s great long distance trading routes.
Like other ancient trade routes, this one had several branches running for some 2,500km from St. Petersburg on the edge of the Baltic Sea to the great trading city-state of Venice on the Adriatic.
The existence of the Amber Route predates both of those cities. Reference to a tribe called the Aesti who gathered this strange substance on the shores of the Suevian Ocean — the Baltic Sea — appears as early as 98 AD in the writing of the historian Tacitus.
It was at different times prized as a luxury item, believed to have healing properties, and treasured as a time capsule of the ancient creatures — ‘inclusions’ — that have been trapped in it, most often plants and insects, but also lizards.
I’d always thought amber was fossilized tree resin, and it is the resin of conifer trees from the prehistoric forests of northern Scandinavia. But as as Schüler points out, ‘fossils’ are imprints of organic objects left in stone. Amber is the actual resin transformed by polymerization and oxidation.
The Baltic Sea produces 90% of the world’s supply. I made a circuit of that sea in 2015 to write a magazine feature and several columns, and I encountered the stuff everywhere, especially in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
Schüler’s book brought back memories of magical evenings on the Curonian Spit, where the light is like nowhere else. And it renewed the spark of small regrets at adjacent roads not yet travelled. I didn’t have the opportunity to dip into the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad on that trip, and given the war, it may be years before another opportunity comes up.
I think that was my favourite section, the chapter on Kaliningrad, because it is one of the strangest regions Schüler passes through. But this book and this journey are about more than just amber.
Schüler’s route coincides with his own family’s history, and with his many Jewish ancestors who didn’t survive the Holocaust.
In traveling this route to tell the story of both amber and his family, he gives us a brisk history of Mitteleuropa and glimpses of countries that no longer exist, including Prussia, Czechoslovakia, the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary, and Yugoslavia.
He also stops for the night at Bernstein Castle, which had been the ancestral home of the Hungarian aviator and Sahara explorer László Almásy, someone whose exploits I’ve admired from afar through his books (and through the excellent account of Almásy’s Second World War exploits, Operation Salam, by my friend Andras Zboray), and from up close through the traces he left behind in the environs around Jebel Uweinat on the borders of Sudan, Libya and Egypt. Crossing Almásy’s path again here was one of the unexpected delights of this book.
Along the Amber Route is an enjoyable and highly readable book that sometimes breezes along more quickly than I’d like. But of course, that just sparks one’s curiosity for further reading and further journeys.
Like other ancient trade routes, this one had several branches running for some 2,500km from St. Petersburg on the edge of the Baltic Sea to the great trading city-state of Venice on the Adriatic.
The existence of the Amber Route predates both of those cities. Reference to a tribe called the Aesti who gathered this strange substance on the shores of the Suevian Ocean — the Baltic Sea — appears as early as 98 AD in the writing of the historian Tacitus.
It was at different times prized as a luxury item, believed to have healing properties, and treasured as a time capsule of the ancient creatures — ‘inclusions’ — that have been trapped in it, most often plants and insects, but also lizards.
I’d always thought amber was fossilized tree resin, and it is the resin of conifer trees from the prehistoric forests of northern Scandinavia. But as as Schüler points out, ‘fossils’ are imprints of organic objects left in stone. Amber is the actual resin transformed by polymerization and oxidation.
The Baltic Sea produces 90% of the world’s supply. I made a circuit of that sea in 2015 to write a magazine feature and several columns, and I encountered the stuff everywhere, especially in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
Schüler’s book brought back memories of magical evenings on the Curonian Spit, where the light is like nowhere else. And it renewed the spark of small regrets at adjacent roads not yet travelled. I didn’t have the opportunity to dip into the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad on that trip, and given the war, it may be years before another opportunity comes up.
I think that was my favourite section, the chapter on Kaliningrad, because it is one of the strangest regions Schüler passes through. But this book and this journey are about more than just amber.
Schüler’s route coincides with his own family’s history, and with his many Jewish ancestors who didn’t survive the Holocaust.
In traveling this route to tell the story of both amber and his family, he gives us a brisk history of Mitteleuropa and glimpses of countries that no longer exist, including Prussia, Czechoslovakia, the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary, and Yugoslavia.
He also stops for the night at Bernstein Castle, which had been the ancestral home of the Hungarian aviator and Sahara explorer László Almásy, someone whose exploits I’ve admired from afar through his books (and through the excellent account of Almásy’s Second World War exploits, Operation Salam, by my friend Andras Zboray), and from up close through the traces he left behind in the environs around Jebel Uweinat on the borders of Sudan, Libya and Egypt. Crossing Almásy’s path again here was one of the unexpected delights of this book.
Along the Amber Route is an enjoyable and highly readable book that sometimes breezes along more quickly than I’d like. But of course, that just sparks one’s curiosity for further reading and further journeys.
February 4, 2025
A very captivating read - I can't remember the last travelogue that I read. Schüler sets out on the Amber route, a trail dating from the Roman period following the path of amber from the Baltic to the Adriatic. This journey takes him from St Petersburg to Venice, allowed him to visit and comment on a vast range of historical sites, especially given the proximity of the Iron Curtain.
Schüler also has vested interests however - he traces the life of Jewish ancestors in Germany/Poland from 1800s through to the WWII. Hence, there's also poignant reflection on the Holocaust and it's effects.
I really enjoyed this book. The commentary on various towns and sites were fascinating - jumping from the amber artifacts, to Roman watchtowers to Jewish synagogues. I loved the route as well - Schüler goes through Kaliningrad, almost the epicenter of the amber trade, which provides a fascinating insight into this oblast.
Schüler also has vested interests however - he traces the life of Jewish ancestors in Germany/Poland from 1800s through to the WWII. Hence, there's also poignant reflection on the Holocaust and it's effects.
I really enjoyed this book. The commentary on various towns and sites were fascinating - jumping from the amber artifacts, to Roman watchtowers to Jewish synagogues. I loved the route as well - Schüler goes through Kaliningrad, almost the epicenter of the amber trade, which provides a fascinating insight into this oblast.
August 12, 2025
An interesting book. The author follows the Amber trading route from Russia to Venice through eastern Europe. He visits lots of cities and towns which are off the normal tourist beat. Although amber is the main theme he also takes an interest in lots of other aspects of the journey, he is particularly keen on all things Roman. There is also the strand in the book about his Jewish relatives who lived in this area and how the Jewish population were massacred by the Nazis. He keeps a good balance between the factual detail and his personal journey. All in all this book was a pleasant surprise.
June 9, 2024
Along the Amber Route is a travelogue about the ancient trade in amber in Europe. It is chatty and entertaining, but doesn't have much to say beyond that. This is not an academic book, but it does include visits by the author to bits of Europe that are neglected and forgotten, so it was worth reading, though I would have enjoyed it more if there were fewer typos and misspelled words in the book.
October 14, 2020
Part family history (the author is of Polish-Jewish descent), part travelogue, part geopolitical commentary on Central and Eastern Europe, this was a meandering but interesting read. Could have done with fewer words that seemed overly-pretentious and took me out of the text, but otherwise would recommend (I will look out amber next time I'm in Venice for sure!).
November 26, 2020
I heard the author on a radio interview. Great interview, so I bought the book. Overall, I was disappointed with the book. No coloured pictures of amber. It comes over as more of a travel guide. The book describes in detail the hotels and gives a short history of the towns on route. I recommend this book for travellers.
August 3, 2021
Interesting facts, but the delivery is a little dry.
October 29, 2021
Tho I would have liked to learn a bit more about amber and amber artefacts, this is an engaging travelogue which takes in many small towns as well as big cities along the Amber Route.
November 28, 2023
It described the author’s search for amber along the route and was complemented with rich historical information.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews