Dominic Ziegler
Autor de Black Dragon River: A Journey Down the Amur River at the Borderlands of Empires
1 Obra 122 Miembros 7 Reseñas
Obras de Dominic Ziegler
Etiquetado
1-non-fiction (1)
Asia (8)
Asia Central (2)
asian-pacific-rim-studies (1)
bab (2)
books by economist writers (1)
China (23)
chinese-literture (2)
Country:China (1)
Dominic Ziegler (1)
far eas (1)
Geografía (3)
goodreads.com (1)
Historia (7)
Historia Europea (2)
historia mundial (2)
historical non-fiction (2)
importado de goodreads (1)
ingram1132016 (1)
June 2016 (1)
LBK (1)
Leído en 2016 (1)
Leído/a en 2017 (1)
Libro de viaje (3)
literatura rusa (2)
Mongolia (3)
Mystery Gift (1)
No ficción (8)
nonfiction-other (1)
on the radar (1)
other-fiction (1)
other-non-fiction (1)
Por leer (19)
Rusia (18)
russia-21st century (1)
russia-ussr (1)
Río Amur (4)
Siberia (2)
travelogue (2)
Viaje (23)
Conocimiento común
- Género
- male
Miembros
Reseñas
Denunciada
Den85 | 6 reseñas más. | Jan 3, 2024 | A bunch of history from a faraway part of the world we don't generally hear so much about here in the west. Ziegler knows his topic and does a pretty good job of spicing it up along the way. Even so, I eventually got a bit muddled about which Cosack had done what.
½Denunciada
BBrookes | 6 reseñas más. | Dec 8, 2023 | The Black Dragon River has a long history, reaching as far back as Genghis Khan and the Mongolian empire around 1000 years ago. This was the beginning of its tumultuous history of conflict and war that has lasted pretty much until the present day. Also called the Amur, it is a river that I had never heard of until I picked this book up. Turns out it is the world’s ninth longest and forms part of the border between Russia and China and has been a focal point for each country’s expansion plans over the years. It has seen more than it fair share of death and destruction from both sides
Ziegler begins his journey along the river as Khan would have done, on a horse, from the Mongolian steppe into the taiga to what is thought to be the source of the river. His journey along the river is not always easy so he is forced to take the Trans-Siberian Railway through a valley of water meadows. He does return to the river and the people and places along it, but it almost seems to be a aside. I was hoping this was going to be a fascinating travel book about a relatively unknown part of the world, but sadly there was much more history than travel, and this is a place that has had a lot of brutal events happen. Not bad, but not great.… (más)
Ziegler begins his journey along the river as Khan would have done, on a horse, from the Mongolian steppe into the taiga to what is thought to be the source of the river. His journey along the river is not always easy so he is forced to take the Trans-Siberian Railway through a valley of water meadows. He does return to the river and the people and places along it, but it almost seems to be a aside. I was hoping this was going to be a fascinating travel book about a relatively unknown part of the world, but sadly there was much more history than travel, and this is a place that has had a lot of brutal events happen. Not bad, but not great.… (más)
1
Denunciada
PDCRead | 6 reseñas más. | Apr 6, 2020 | Joy's review: Ziegler describes a trip on and around the Amur River including a sweeping and detailed history of the area. It's a very interesting history and area, but unfortunately, Ziegler does a poor job of writing about it. I found his narrative structure weak to non existent which made following his often convoluted sentences even more difficult. I was expecting a lot more from a reporter for the Economist.
½Denunciada
konastories | 6 reseñas más. | Mar 13, 2017 | Estadísticas
- Obras
- 1
- Miembros
- 122
- Popularidad
- #163,289
- Valoración
- ½ 3.7
- Reseñas
- 7
- ISBNs
- 9
The way he treated the material makes it a valuable anti-Russian propaganda piece. All is filth, greed, hate, decrepitude, drunkenness, etc. Vast majority of warm and compassionate words are addressed to the wildlife of the area and somewhat grudgingly to China, when compared to Russia.
Don't take me wrong, I'm not an apologetic of Russian chauvinism or Putin, but this work could be vividly contrasted with another book I'm reading at the moment, the one that covers another much maligned Russian misdeed - 'Afghan' by Sir Roderic Braithwaite. He deals with a far more controversial topic, yet manages to produce an unbiased narrative, finding bad and good in actions of all sides, even tangentially involved in the conflict. Not that he forcefully balances good with evils, but he tries to be objective: he calls sadists sadists, but he never slaps labels and cliches left and right. Being able not to ride through on a high moral horse is apparently a talent not everyone's born with.
I gave it 3 stars mostly for driving attention to this God forsaken region. It's a unique and beautiful area, rich in wildlife and cultures.… (más)