Bound: The Sweep of History
Two Monumental Looks at Our Storied Past
Miami Book Fair may be over, but books of course will endure, as will history, whether or not we’re doomed to repeat it. To ensure we swing with those who know (and know better) though, here’s the lowdown on two (relatively) recent historical offerings, each of which will sweep you well off your feet.
The Crimean War: A History, Orlando Figes (Metropolitan Books $35)
Hard to believe that a war which pitted empire against empires and took over a million lives is nearly lost to history, but aside from an epic poem (Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade”) and a mythic figure (Florence Nightingale), when it comes to the Crimean that’s just about the case. What’s odd is that this wasn’t simply a war between a flexing Russia and a sickly Ottoman Empire (which was backed by allies Britain and France); this was the war that set the stage for the World Wars to come.
As Figes notes, the Crimean War was “the earliest example of a truly modern war — fought with new industrial technologies, modern rifles, steamships and railways, novel forms of logistics and communication like the telegraph, important innovations in military medicine and war reporters and photographers directly on the scene.”
When Metropolitan released Figes’s epic chronicle back in April (Picador has the paperback slated for February 2012), it had already received rave reviews in the author’s native UK (where it was entitled Crimea: The Last Crusade). As you might suspect, U.S. critics were no less ready with accolades. The New Yorker deemed the book “engrossing.” The New York Review of Books said it was “important and impressive.” And The New York Times said Figes’s “history is a huge success.”
Like the war itself, Figes’s book is also rather bloody:
“His harrowing recounting of [year-long seize of] Sevastopol presents an inferno of military absurdities and gruesome deaths,” wrote Gary J. Bass in the July 8th edition of The Times, “with people hit by rocks, gored with lances, hacked by swords, decapitated by shells and disemboweled.”
Ostensibly ignited by a feud over holy places in Ottoman-controlled Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and Russia’s self-appointed role as Christian protector, The Crimean War was in reality Britain’s and France’s way to keep the Bear from encroaching beyond its already vast borders. Neither country had any particular love for the Ottoman Empire; both however were more than willing to prop up the “Sick Man of Europe” if it meant keeping Russia in check.
No, as Figes’s eight page selected bibliography so copiously attests, this isn’t the first time someone dared tackle The Crimean War, yet it may as well be the last. Does praise get much higher than that?
Jerusalem: A Biography, Simon Sebag Montefiore (Knopf $35)
It was actually through Jerusalem that I came to The Crimean War. As mentioned, religious squabbles were the ostensible reason Russia took on the Ottoman Empire (and induced Britain and France to intervene), and that episode is colorfully chronicled in Montefiore’s Biography. Thing is, the spark that started the war in Crimea doesn’t come till better than half way into this nearly boundless book. By then I was so weary from the city’s serial slaughter that war seemed a bit of a respite.
That’s not to say that Montefiore’s sweeping story is tiring, in any respect. For those who’ve only perhaps a passing knowledge of Jerusalem’s history however, the constant bloodshed and devastation may come as something of a shock.
“For 1,000 years, Jerusalem was exclusively Jewish;” writes Montefiore, “for about 400 years, Christian; for 1,300 years, Islamic; and not one of the three faiths ever gained Jerusalem without the sword, the mangonel or the howitzer.”
As Jackson Diehl noted in The Washington Post, “No other city on earth has such a dark history of murder, rape, pillage and torture.” And even his rave review couldn’t help pointing out the “searing and sometimes stomach-turning” way in which Montefiore starts his story. That the bloodshed begins with a “retelling of the most famous siege of all: the destruction of Jewish Jerusalem in A.D. 70 by the Roman commander Titus, who celebrated his grisly victory by crucifying 500 prisoners a day” only hints at the devastation to follow.
When I interviewed Montefiore for another outlet last month, my main question was “How did you keep your head while writing about the loss of so many others?” Montefiore, who’s a descendant of one Moses Montefiore, modern Jerusalem’s most noted benefactor, seemed almost to shrug it off.
“Jerusalem is a story of slaughter, fanaticism, bigotry and vulgarity,” he told me, “but also of exquisite beauty and grace, sanctity and poetry. You can read the book as a saga of great conquerors, prophets, whores, kings, poets, empresses and dynasties, but also as a scholarly study of holiness, identity empire and nationalism.”
“I think the book has both sides,” he concluded. And he’s right. Despite the near continuous bloodshed and devastation, Jerusalem does offer a balanced view of a the city’s history. It’s not Montefiore’s fault the city’s history is the epitome of utter imbalance itself.
Taken in tandem, Jerusalem and The Crimean War will leave you thoroughly learned and fulfilled. That both books do so without being either pedantic or boring is testament to their authors’ remarkable alacrity. Whether or not it matters that both authors happen to be British is for others to decide. In my humble opinion, it means only that a certain Empire has bequeathed us some formidable minds. Lucky for us all those minds are set on delivering the sweep of history.
