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Bloody Baron: Wicked Dictator of the East
It is 1921, and post-revolutionary Russia is being torn apart by civil war. Out of the wreckage rises a crazy, eagle-eyed Baron, who plans to conquer the largest empire the world has ever known...When he fails to get his hands on Russia, the Bloody Baron sets his sights on Monglolia...
Paperback
First published September 17, 2001
About the author
Nick Middleton
33 books28 followersNick Middleton is a British physical geographer and supernumerary fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford. He specialises in desertification.
Nick Middleton was born in London, England. As a geographer, he has travelled to more than 50 countries. Going to Extremes is a television programme for Channel 4 about extreme lifestyles, in which Middleton experiences life in the hostile conditions other cultures must endure. He has appeared on BBC 2's Through the Keyhole.
Nick Middleton was born in London, England. As a geographer, he has travelled to more than 50 countries. Going to Extremes is a television programme for Channel 4 about extreme lifestyles, in which Middleton experiences life in the hostile conditions other cultures must endure. He has appeared on BBC 2's Through the Keyhole.
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Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
September 3, 2023
This is the first time I have refused to shelve a book in any way except for how bad it is. I have nothing but contempt for it - at first I thought it was a children's book because it is written in prose as mediocre as that of Enid Blyton and would not challenge a 10 year old reader. But it isn't for children, but part of a not very successful or long lived (that doesn't surprise me) series of 'Who was' books which included very brief lives of British historical figures of fairly a predictable sort like Queen Victoria, Anne Boleyn, Admiral Nelson, David Livingston, Florence Nightingale and Sam (sic) Johnson. The only living person in the series is Nelson Mandela and aside from him and the Baron Ungern-Sternberg the only other figure with no connection to the UK is Annie Oakley.
At 64 pages , with rather large print, I didn't expect depth or subtlety, I was perfectly prepared for sweeping generalisations and simplifications, even distortions - Lynton Strachey's 'Eminent Victorians' are still worth reading even though their veracity can be challenged - but not for what I read which was a fictional account of the Baron's last campaign and capture by Bolshevik forces and execution. Everything that was interesting in the Baron's life, particularly his time in Mongolia, was more-or-less ignored. What infuriated me was not simplifications but deliberate, or maybe more likely, lazy misinformation.
He says at the beginning that the baron was Russian - he wasn't - that is like saying Oscar Wilde was English. He was a Baltic German (a group which had deep roots with Sweden as well) and are as distinct a group within German literature (and many other areas as well) as Anglo-Irish writers like Elizabeth Bowen are within Irish literature. There is nothing wrong with avoiding these complexities (though it was rather the core of von Ungern-Sternberg's character) Middleton could simply have said he was born in the Russian empire - it is not a difficult concept, the Irish, Welsh and Scottish peoples may be citizens of the UK but they are not English.
The author's unwillingness to understand something as basic as the Baron's identity is symptomatic that he is writing not from any knowledge or reading of sources but from fable, legend and mostly cliche. There is no point reading 64 pages of a mediocre fictionalised story of a historical character which has as little substance as a souffle.
At 64 pages , with rather large print, I didn't expect depth or subtlety, I was perfectly prepared for sweeping generalisations and simplifications, even distortions - Lynton Strachey's 'Eminent Victorians' are still worth reading even though their veracity can be challenged - but not for what I read which was a fictional account of the Baron's last campaign and capture by Bolshevik forces and execution. Everything that was interesting in the Baron's life, particularly his time in Mongolia, was more-or-less ignored. What infuriated me was not simplifications but deliberate, or maybe more likely, lazy misinformation.
He says at the beginning that the baron was Russian - he wasn't - that is like saying Oscar Wilde was English. He was a Baltic German (a group which had deep roots with Sweden as well) and are as distinct a group within German literature (and many other areas as well) as Anglo-Irish writers like Elizabeth Bowen are within Irish literature. There is nothing wrong with avoiding these complexities (though it was rather the core of von Ungern-Sternberg's character) Middleton could simply have said he was born in the Russian empire - it is not a difficult concept, the Irish, Welsh and Scottish peoples may be citizens of the UK but they are not English.
The author's unwillingness to understand something as basic as the Baron's identity is symptomatic that he is writing not from any knowledge or reading of sources but from fable, legend and mostly cliche. There is no point reading 64 pages of a mediocre fictionalised story of a historical character which has as little substance as a souffle.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review