Borderlands: Nation And Empire

by Scott L. Malcomson

Turkish or European? European or Muslim? Muslim or Communist? Such were the identities that Scott Malcomson found people grappling with as he traveled through Eastern Europe, Turkey and Central Asia. Learning the languages and immersing himself in the cultures, Malcomson focused on the tensions between local and universal identity in these countries that are historically at the margins of empires and currently on the faultlines of civil war. In these borderlands, the conflict between nation and empire plays itself out on the world stage only when it reaches crisis proportion. But the issues swirling around these outposts have remained unresolved since the land was first divided two thousand years ago by kings and despots. In Borderlands, young Romanian anti-Semites and Muslim fundamentalists speak alongside peasant farmers and privileged schoolgirls and offer their own perspectives on the age-old conflicts. Malcomson encounters Sufi mystics in Bukhara and rootless cosmopolitans at a Bulgarian disco. Whether at a Romanian coal mine or around the neighborhood in Tashkent, he resists easy judgments; instead, he listens and learns. Part historical essay, part reportage, part philosophical speculation, Borderlands is a stunningly innovative work that explores a world that can no longer claim fixed points of reference.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction

289 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1994

Reviews

[Mohammed Aiyob · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting book, highly recommended to whom wants to have a better insight on the incidents that shaped this area of the world and influenced the nature of modern states here, especially Turkey

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Borderlands" is full of insightful nuggets about the countries it covers, but the organization is haphazard--the countries seem chosen at random and there are no transitions between chapters and thoughts. The author's habit of writing travelogue in the second person is also annoying, and he displays a clear bias against Christianity, which even included an irrelevant diversion to advocate for a now-disproven theory about the origin of Christmas. Stick with Kaplan.

[Sam DiBella · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very odd philosophical wandering through Romania, Turkey, and Uzbekistan. Works hard to explain each region's sense of history, but I couldn't quite get over travel writing written in the second person

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing of literary travel books is too often an opportunity to wonder about the strangeness of others, frequently with a subtle tone of disappointment. There are exceptions, of course, but I think those who write about post-Soviet lands are especially susceptible. It is a pity that Malcolmson writes with that tone, abetted by his use of the second person, which is puzzling without being intriguing. It is especially a pity because Malcolmson ranges widely in time and space: his trek west from Romania to Uzbekistan goes beyond the usual tourist stops like Transylviania and Samarkand. His piece on the support of Romanian intellectuals for the local brand of fascism and anti-Semitism is a rich expose of the dangers of eloquence (and a personally painful one; Mircea Eliade's work in comparative religion was one of the enthusiasms of my youth, and all his achievements can't excuse his praise of the Iron Guard as "spiritual"). His take is unusual, both in its perceptive take on the local culture, for example the Sufi heritage in Turkey, or the Uzbek allegiance to villages, and has a talent for finding the courageous local. My favorite is Mohammad Salih, the opposition leader in Uzbekistan now living in Norway, who says: "Islam is our holy religion. Pf course it's role is great. This is natural. In our opinion, Islam shouldn't be political. Islam is higher than any party. To draw it down would mean to curse God."