528 pages, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ISBN-13: 978-0374192181
After having read three previous book by Simon Winder – the excellent Danubia: A Personal History of Habsburg Europe (reviewed on September 1st, 2016) and Germania: In Wayward Pursuit of the Germans and Their History (reviewed on October 13th, 2016), along with the execrable The Man Who Saved Britain: A Personal Journey into the Disturbing World of James Bond (reviewed on September 19th, 2016) – I decided that two out of three ain’t bad, and so I bought Lotharingia: A Personal History of Europe’s Lost Country; I mean, after all, Danubia and Germania were both sprawling travelogues-cum-histories and were great, whereas The Man Who Saved Britain was just a 300+ page screed against his own country (with precious little good to say about its ostensible subject, to boot), so I figured that Lotharingia would follow the path of the former two and not the latter one. That is, I hoped that would be the case.
Happily, it was. Lotharingia follows in the footsteps of Danubia and Germania in being a chatty, informal look-around for a nation that’s no longer there. Imagine Winder teaching a class, not standing at a lectern droning on about who-knows-what, but rather sitting in a leather wingback chair with a few students around him, everyone partaking in tea and crumpets before a roaring fire with dusty tomes all about, just shooting the breeze and going wherever the conversation takes you. THAT’s what these three books are like: delightful, informative and amusing reads. The sweep of Winder’s knowledge of the area and history is breathtaking, while his wit, acuity and sense of irony are all insightful and amusing. Never afraid to call a spade a shovel in his judgements, his take on various subjects to straightforward, like when he says that the Spanish armada was an ill-planned expenditure having no chance of success while noting that Phillip II saw it “as God’s will rather than just a stupid idea”.
While the lost Kingdom of Lotharingia is the main focus of Lotharingia, its over-mighty neighbors can’t help but crowd in on the story: the Holy Roman Empire and the plethora of successor German states; the ever-glowering Kingdom of France; the Duchy of Burgundy (ultimate successor to Lotharingia) and it’s international game of playing off England against France; the Untied Provinces and their epic struggle against Spain; Winder acts as if he is trying to assemble a continent-wide jigsaw using only a fuzzy photograph of the finished product as reference. This is partly due to the fact that chronology and Winder don’t seem to be on speaking terms, which can be confusing (if not infuriating) if you’re not familiar with European history. Thus, we get a listing of museum contents, descriptions of churches, a portrait of Hildegard of Bingen, a section on the Crusades, not to mention notes on the places he has visited and the food that he ate…all seemingly at random. Indeed, Lotharingia the book resembles Lotharingia the country, what with its apparent randomness and hodgepodge organization.
An entertaining and informative look at a long-lost country that, somehow in Winder’s telling, is with us still. So glad kept the voice he found with Danubia and Germania.
Happily, it was. Lotharingia follows in the footsteps of Danubia and Germania in being a chatty, informal look-around for a nation that’s no longer there. Imagine Winder teaching a class, not standing at a lectern droning on about who-knows-what, but rather sitting in a leather wingback chair with a few students around him, everyone partaking in tea and crumpets before a roaring fire with dusty tomes all about, just shooting the breeze and going wherever the conversation takes you. THAT’s what these three books are like: delightful, informative and amusing reads. The sweep of Winder’s knowledge of the area and history is breathtaking, while his wit, acuity and sense of irony are all insightful and amusing. Never afraid to call a spade a shovel in his judgements, his take on various subjects to straightforward, like when he says that the Spanish armada was an ill-planned expenditure having no chance of success while noting that Phillip II saw it “as God’s will rather than just a stupid idea”.
While the lost Kingdom of Lotharingia is the main focus of Lotharingia, its over-mighty neighbors can’t help but crowd in on the story: the Holy Roman Empire and the plethora of successor German states; the ever-glowering Kingdom of France; the Duchy of Burgundy (ultimate successor to Lotharingia) and it’s international game of playing off England against France; the Untied Provinces and their epic struggle against Spain; Winder acts as if he is trying to assemble a continent-wide jigsaw using only a fuzzy photograph of the finished product as reference. This is partly due to the fact that chronology and Winder don’t seem to be on speaking terms, which can be confusing (if not infuriating) if you’re not familiar with European history. Thus, we get a listing of museum contents, descriptions of churches, a portrait of Hildegard of Bingen, a section on the Crusades, not to mention notes on the places he has visited and the food that he ate…all seemingly at random. Indeed, Lotharingia the book resembles Lotharingia the country, what with its apparent randomness and hodgepodge organization.
An entertaining and informative look at a long-lost country that, somehow in Winder’s telling, is with us still. So glad kept the voice he found with Danubia and Germania.
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