The Glass Wall

Few countries have suffered more from the convulsions and bloodshed of twentieth-century Europe than those in the eastern Baltic region. Caught between the giants of Germany and Russia, on a route across which armies surged or retreated, small nations like Latvia and Estonia were for centuries the subjects of conquests and domination as foreign colonizers claimed control of the territory and its inhabitants, along with their religion, government, and culture.

The Glass Wall features an extraordinary cast of characters—contemporary and historical, foreign and indigenous—who have lived and fought in the Baltic, western Europe’s easternmost stronghold. Too often the destiny of this region has seemed to be to serve as the front line in other people’s wars. By telling the stories of warriors and victims, of philosophers and barons, of poets and artists, of rebels and emperors, and of others who lived through years of turmoil and violence, Max Egremont sets forth a brilliant account of a long-overlooked region, on a frontier whose limits may still be in doubt.