Status
Available
Publication
Vintage (2005), 272 pages
Description
InMediterranean Winter, Robert D. Kaplan, the bestselling authorof Balkan GhostsandEastward to Tartary, relives an austere, haunting journey he took as a youth through the off-season Mediterranean. The awnings are rolled up and the other tourists are gone, so the damp, cold weather takes him back to the 1950s and earlier—a golden, intensely personal age of tourism. Decades ago, Kaplan voyaged from North Africa to Italy, Yugoslavia, and Greece, luxuriating in the radical freedom of youth, unaccountable to time because there was always time to make up for a mistake. He recalls that journey in this Persian miniature of a book, less to look inward into his own past than to look outward in order to dissect the process of learning through travel, in which a succession of new landscapes can lead to books and artwork never before encountered. Kaplan first imagines Tunis as the glow of gypsum lamps shimmering against lime-washed mosques; the city he actually discovers is even more intoxicating. He takes the reader to the ramparts of a Turkish kasbah where Carthaginian, Roman, and Byzantine forts once stood: “I could see deep into Algeria over a rib-work of hills so gaunt it seemed the wind had torn the flesh off them.” In these austere and aromatic surroundings he discovers Saint Augusti≠ the courtyards of Tunis lead him to the historical writings of Ibn Khaldun. Kaplan takes us to the fifth-century Greek temple at Segesta, where he reflects on the ill-fated 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 and for contemplation, where you wanted a book handy. Every corner was a cloister. No view was panoramic: each seemed deliberately composed.” Kaplan’s bus and train travels, his nighttime boat voyages, and his long walks in one archaeological site after another lead him to subjects as varied as the Berber threat to Cartha≥ 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; twentieth-century British literary writing about Greece; and the links between Rodin and the Croa- tian sculptor Ivan Mestrovic. Within these pages are smells, tastes, and the profundity of chance encounters. Mediterranean Winter begins in Rodin’s sculpture garden in Paris, passes through the gritty streets of Marseilles, and ends with a moving epiphany about Greece as the world prepares for the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. Mediterranean Winter is the story of an education. It is filled with memories and history, not the author’s alone, but humanity’s as well.… (more)
Media reviews
In Mediterranean Winter, Robert D. Kaplan, the bestselling author of Balkan Ghosts and Eastward to Tartary, relives an austere, haunting journey he took as a youth through the off-season Mediterranean. The awnings are rolled up and the other tourists are gone, so the damp, cold weather takes him
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back to the 1950s and earlier—a golden, intensely personal age of tourism.
Decades ago, Kaplan voyaged from North Africa to Italy, Yugoslavia, and Greece, luxuriating in the radical freedom of youth, unaccountable to time because there was always time to make up for a mistake. He recalls that journey in this Persian miniature of a book, less to look inward into his own past than to look outward in order to dissect the process of learning through travel, in which a succession of new landscapes can lead to books and artwork never before encountered. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member JBreedlove
Classic Kaplan. The author pieces together past and present travels while commenting on social conditions within parts of the Mediterranean basin.
LibraryThing member dickcraig
This was my least favorite Kaplan book. It was short and did not give me the sense of deep knowledge of the countries he traveled in like "Ends of the Earth".
LibraryThing member sjberberich
i'm about a third of the way through and i find myself craving this book when i'm at work. what i am liking about it so far is the curiousity that's it's sparked in greek/roman history, both of which i've never really thougth about (gasp!). i like that kaplan writes from memory and doesn't pretend
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to remember verbatim coversations that happened three decades ago. when reading this, be sure to have your internets ready to look up all the stuff he talks about that you didn't learn in school. it all seems so new...i think that's why it almost seems fictional. like a fairy tale, really. Show Less
LibraryThing member mrtall
I found Robert Kaplan’s Mediterranean Winter delightful: Kaplan is reminiscing on travels long past (he’s writing in the early 2000s, recollecting trips he made mostly as a young man in the 1970s). But I see this as a feature, not a flaw. Kaplan’s consciously constricts his perspective to the
Kaplan's approach is sophisticated and evocative, although at times it does mean he leaves the reader with almost singular images and impressions from places that merit whole volumes of travelogue from others. But then, those travelogues are there for the reading; another strength of this work is the way in which Kaplan opens doors to further reading and exploration of his subjects. He is entirely democratic and open to others’ perspectives.
Recommended.
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most vividly memorable instances and feelings his trips inspired, those incidents and vistas and people who made the deepest impressions on him. As he recounts these personal experiences, he links his own limited ‘travel history’ to the great myths and stories that have sprung up from the history-soaked lands of Tunisia, Italy, Croatia and Greece. Kaplan's approach is sophisticated and evocative, although at times it does mean he leaves the reader with almost singular images and impressions from places that merit whole volumes of travelogue from others. But then, those travelogues are there for the reading; another strength of this work is the way in which Kaplan opens doors to further reading and exploration of his subjects. He is entirely democratic and open to others’ perspectives.
Recommended.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Smiley
Sometimes insightful but mostly a scatter of memory. Hard to tell when he was traveling alone and when he was with someone. Kaplan jumps between anywhere between '70's and the 21st century. At times his learning is heavy handed.
LibraryThing member tabascofromgudreads
“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
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 the style of an “introverted left-brainer”. Let me explain: the reality in which Kaplan seems to move in is a reality made of facts, 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 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 on 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.
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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 the style of an “introverted left-brainer”. Let me explain: the reality in which Kaplan seems to move in is a reality made of facts, 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 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 on 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.
Show Less
LibraryThing member tabascofromgudreads
“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
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 the style of an “introverted left-brainer”. Let me explain: the reality in which Kaplan seems to move in is a reality made of facts, 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 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 on 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.
Show More
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 the style of an “introverted left-brainer”. Let me explain: the reality in which Kaplan seems to move in is a reality made of facts, 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 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 on 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.
Show Less
LibraryThing member danoomistmatiste
A very interesting writeup on a small swath of the mediterranean streaching from Tunisia, Sicily, Greece and Croatia with some indepth analysis on the effects of Greek, Roman, Carthiginian and Spartan influences in these areas. Very interesting.
Subjects
Language
Original language
English
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