Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Crimea: the Last Crusade by Orlando Figes: review


2 comments:

Hels said...

There were two unexpected lines in the review:

1. "The way in which the war became a crucial part of late-Victorian patriotic mythology, contributing to a new ethos of muscular Christianity" and

2. "In Britain, the key factor was the pressure of public opinion, whipped up by newspapers that cast the Orthodox Tsar as a “semi-pagan” bully". The key factor?

Clearly we don't know the history of the Crimean War as well as we might.

Hermes said...

And politics. I remember reading there were plans to invade Russia in the first war plans to stop them 'threatening' Britians trade routes.