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Travel Planning Book Store > Travel Planning books beginning with V
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The Vanished Kingdom: Travels Through The History Of Prussia |
Author: James Charles Roy
Published: 2000-05-25 |
List price: $18.00
Our price: $13.36
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As of: January 06th, 2009 11:48:35 PM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 Well-done
Loved it! I took this book with me as I toured Berlin and Western Poland, and I gained more of a sense of place by reading it along the way. This book contains the usual assortment of names, dates, etc.--info you could find in any college textbook. Roy makes all sorts of interesting connections using obscure stories and quotes, personal interviews of those who lived through some of these times, and his own observations touring the area after the fall of the wall. He additionally references other historians, particularly on the topic of the third reich, and adds new ideas on the subject.
 A good, but somewhat ideological and outdated trip to Preussen
I quite enjoyed this book; Roy has got a very fine ability to make history come alive, and combines it with a sort of "travel journal" from the contemporary Prussia of the early 90's. You can really tell that time has passed since he wrote his account though, and not in a good way. The book serves well as a picture of Prussia and its neighbouring lands just after the Berlin-wall fell, but it's hardly updated for the third millennium. I enjoyed the fact that Roy uses the old and valid idea of race and folk souls in his writing, not many authors dare to do this. I really loved the book when it chronicled early Prussian history, before the more controversial periods, but I started to get a bad taste in my mouth as we were nearing the post-ww1 period.
And suddenly it comes out in full bloom "Anyone that questions the Auschwitz should be whipped" and other emotional tirades in an otherwise wonderful book. He is of course entitled to his opinion, but were it any other subject he would be ostracized for using such language, but for some reason that completely eludes me, the official history of the Jewish troubles during ww2 is holy and beyond research and questioning. What if he had said, "Anyone that dares pry into the history of the conquest of the American continent deserves to be whipped?"
As an end-note I'd like to add that he does give a rather good and objective picture of Prussia and its inhabitants, but when he got to the Holy Cow of the West, he fails miserably. So in other words a conclusion is hard to reach, I can only embrace the first two chapters of the book, the rest should be read with the help of Dr. Kevin Macdonald's book "Separation and its Discontents", it will help you understand the Polish and German attitude better, to say the least.
Eloquent Book.
"The Vanished Kingdom" By James Charles Roy. Subtitled: "Travels Through The History Of Prussia". Westview Press, 1999.
I first was acquainted with James Charles Roy when I read some of his books on Ireland; see, for example: "The Fields Of Athenry: A Journey through Ireland, 2001". More than 50 years ago, I studied the German language, and the "culture" sections exposed me to those forever gone places: Prussia, East Prussia, Pomerania, and Silesia. Also, that small city-state whose postage stamps I collected: Memel. So, I was quite happy to see Roy's book, "The Vanished Kingdom".
James Charles Roy has written an excellent and eloquent book tracing the history of the lands way east, well beyond the Oder and the Elbe rivers. The author goes back to the early Crusades to trace the beginnings of what later became Prussia, and develops the story into more modern times, with Napoleon, and then the Franco Prussian War, Bismark and the Kaiser (William II) and, of course, the two world wars. Interspersed with all this history, Mr. Roy makes personal observations of the present conditions in the lands the book discusses. He spends substantial time on Koenigsberg, the present day Kaliningrad, which, by the way, still employs Russian postage stamps and is nominally Russian. The author is impressed with Koenigsberg's philosopher, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Sorry, Mr. Roy, since I went to a Catholic college, Kant was a footnote to St. Thomas Aquinas.
My fellow Amazon reviewers appear to be of two minds on this book. Those with German-sounding names want to emphasize the recovery of the lost lands to the East. The others want to emphasize the poor opinion the author presents for the Poles he met on his journey. I would remind my Polish co-religionists that James Charles Roy had travelled extensively throughout Ireland where he was undoubtedly met with Irish hospitality: Cead Milte Failte....literally, A Hundred Thousand Welcomes. His journal of this journey shows that the Poles he encountered were not that hospitable; they therefore became fair game for this reporting. I know that the author believes that they were mistakenly identified him as German, and this raised some animosity. I can understand that, but the benefit of the doubt should have been given. Since I have blue eyes, a fair skin, and once had blond hair, I encountered the same animosity at some oil refineries in Europe, especially since my Dutch had a German accent. When I replied that I was of Irish descent, everyone was again all smiles. By the way, I wonder how many of them could pronounce "Athenry" correctly.
I suggest that this is a fair and eloquent book that deserves five stars.
The Vanished Kingdom
'The Vanished Kingdom' by James Charles Roy is a fascinating travelogue, combined with the history of this enigmatic land known as Prussia. This land that is so integral to the German identity, is now split between Poland and Russia. Seen by Germany's enemies as a symbol of German expansionism, any talk of reunification is usually met with a less than warm reception. Nevertheless, Prussia remains in the hearts and minds of Germans, and many still hope to reclaim it someday. Roy travels this historically rich land, talking to Poles, Russians, and German tourists engaging in some very interesting conversations along the way. Along with this travelogue, he fluently blends the turbulent history of Prussia, from the Teutonic Knights to Bismarck, and from Frederick the Great to Von Hindenburg. My only criticism is that the author tends to ramble on in certain places, exerting too much time on subjects of limited relevance to Prussia. For example, the several pages he spends discussing Napoleon, I could have done without. Nevertheless, I found 'The Vanished Kingdom' to be enjoyable as well as informative. I would consider it an extremely valuable addition to any student of European history in general and essential for students of German history in particular.
"All the worst Nazi's came from Prussia"
That was what one coworker told me on the first day of my new job. Yea, awkward. (my ancestors left in the 1880s) Anyway, there is a lot more history to Prussia than Nazism and these days books about Prussia don't exactly pop out of the book shelves; those that do typically refer to places remote in time and place. However, the author has done a tremendous job of joining the past and how they touch and concern lands and locations today. Well researched and organized, it is a great introduction into a history your teacher might have forgotten to cover.
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