Traveling the Fault Lines of Civilizations
The borders between east and west seems like tectonic plates. Immense forces of culture, religion, language collide sometimes resulting in earthquakes that alter civilization at the margins. Sometimes the collision requires us to remake our political maps . Perhaps it was probably more imagined that real but the experience of taking a ferry crossing Bosphorus leaving the European side of Istanbul to the Asian side, seemed like leaving one world and entering another. Four books on what happens at the faults lines. 1. Bloodlands : Between Hitler and Stalin, Timothy Snyder (2010). A compelling read on the the frightening use of power by the 20th Century's two most ruthless dictators. The people of Ukraine, Poland and other eastern Europe territories were first starved to death in the millions by Stalin's enforcement of collective farming. When Hitler invaded these territories, he deported, starved and murdered ...