Crimea: A History

Crimea: A History by Neil Kent

In 2016 Crimea shaped the headlines much as it did some 160 years ago when the Crimean War pitted Britain, France, and Turkey against Russia. Yet few books have been published on the history of the peninsula. For many readers, Crimea seems as remote today as it was when colonized by the ancient Greeks.

Neil Kent's book recounts the history of Crimea over three millennia. A crossroads between Europe and Asia, ships sailed to and from Crimean ports, forming a bridge that carried merchandise and transmitted ideas and innovations.

Greeks, Scythians, Tatars, Russians, Armenians, and Genoese are among those who have settled in the peninsula since antiquity, a veritable demographic patchwork. Their religious beliefs are almost as numerous: Islam, Judaism, Russian and Greek Orthodoxy, as well as Roman Catholicism have all taken root. This mosaic is reflected also in places of worship and the palaces which still adorn Crimea: imperial Romanov Massandra, the "noble nest" of Prince Vorontsov at Alupca, or the Palace of Bakhchisaray, built for the Tatar Khan. For some two centuries, balmy Yalta and its environs were a veritable Black Sea Riviera, where Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin met at the end of the Second World War.

Hurst & Company, Hardcover, 1st Edition, 2016.