The Glass Wall

This journey to the edge of Europe mixes history, travelogue and oral testimony to spellbinding and revelatory effect.

Few countries have suffered more from the convulsions and bloodshed of twentieth-century Europe than those in the eastern Baltic. Small nations such as the Baltic States of Latvia and Estonia found themselves caught between the giants of Germany and Russia, on a route across which armies surged or retreated. Subjected to foreign domination and conquest since the Northern crusades in the twelfth century, these lands faced frequent devastation as Germans, Russians and Swedish colonisers asserted control of the territory, religion, government, culture and inhabitants.

The Glass Wall features an extraordinary cast of characters – contemporary and historical, foreign and indigenous – who have lived and fought in the Baltic and made the atmosphere of what was often thought to be western Europe’s furthest redoubt. Too often it has seemed to be the destiny of this region to be the front line of other people’s wars. By telling the stories of warriors and victims, of philosophers and Baltic Barons, of poets and artists, of rebels and emperors, and others who lived through years of turmoil and violence, Max Egremont reveals a fascinating part of Europe, on a frontier whose limits may still be in doubt.

About the Author

Max Egremont studied history at Oxford University. As well as four novels, he has written biographies of Arthur Balfour, Major-General Sir Edward Spears and Siegfried Sassoon, and Some Desperate Glory: the First World War the Poets Knew. His Forgotten Land: Journeys among the Ghosts of East Prussia (2011) has been described as ‘a work of consummate artistry’ (the Spectator), ‘a story for our time’ (the New Statesman), ‘remarkable, fascinating reading’ (the Sunday Times), ‘beautifully written’ (the Wall Street Journal), and ‘the very best form of travel writing’ (the Mail on Sunday).