Book review: The Black Sea. A History, Ch. King, Oxford University Press, 2005, 276 pp

"The Black Sea, A History", by Charles King, an Associate Professor in the School of Foreign Service and the Department of Government at Georgetown University, where he also holds the university's Ion Ratiu Chair in Romanian Studies, is a remarkable original contribution added to others devoted to this real "unicum hydrobiologicum" as the Black Sea has been certainly best characterized by Russian oceanographer N.M. Knipovich early last century.

• This achievement does represent an editorial event, as an exhaustive research, based on the author's personal traveling experience, documentation and literature search, on the historical evolution of the Black Sea region and its hinterlands.
• The author's investigations sur place were for sure considerably helped by his fluency in the Russian and Romanian languages and reading abilities in French, Italian and Turkish.
• After acknowledgements and local languages related orthographic and correct pronunciation pertinent explanations, the reader is introduced into the quite interesting and ab initio cosmopolite Black Sea universe.
• The book is structured adequately and inspired in five chronologically exposed well elaborated historical development stages: antique Greek/Roman (700 BC - 500 AD), Italian (500 - 1500), Turkish (1500 - 1700), Russian (1700 - 1860) and contemporary (1860 - 1990).
• Most important and relevant events are concisely exposed and commented in a clear objective manner.
• Less fortunate are some Romania related connotations, in spite of author's direct access to literature. So are some initial overreacted negative assessments on Dobrudja as "a hotbed of banditry and separatism" with "stagnant economy and inadequate social services " (p.10), an area which on the contrary progressed well during the  last decades and is an example of multiethnic understanding. Even worse, the statement that "Romania emerged from the postwar treaties with the former Hungarian region of Transylvania, Russian Bessarabia, Austrian Bukovina, and part of Bulgarian Dobrudja now inside its borders" (p. 224), sic !, hilarious if not sad, is incorrect and frustrating: an insufficiently informed reader could easily perceive those provinces as conjunctural (and therefore unjustified) "possessions" or gifts, contrary to historical and statistical evidences of prevailing share of Romanians in the course of time (see, e.g., at least "Transylvania Romanian land: The Transylvanian issue according to an American", by Milton G. Lehrer, Bucuresti, 1944, republished 1989) ! Last but not least, as a matter of fact, as to "Oil refineries sprouted up along the Romanian coast, " (p..231), there was and still is, partially operating now, only a single such industrial objective, Petromidia, at Cape Midia.
• In addition to historical core considerations, the relatively recent severe collapse and disequilibrium affecting the Black Sea ecosystem is well resumed and exemplified.
• Perhaps the doubtless attractivity of this publication could have been risen by a more generous illustration.
• All quotations and selected literature prove the author's strong apprehension for analyzing and synthesizing vast amount of consulted documents, occasionally in original languages.
• This work may be considered as one of best ways to familiarize with Black Sea historical (and succinctly ecological) issues, and attests to Professor's King reputation as a Black Sea historian.

A Romanian quite apt translation, except annoying by mis-spelled <Istambul> (probably due to previously used Stambul) over entire text and few other errors (<submarin sovietic german>, <de la Marea Neagra / Nordului pana la Marea Caspica>, <hipoxemie>), is also already available thanks to BRUMAR Printing House, Timisoara, 2005, besides translations in Italian and Polish, as well as Bulgarian and Czech in preparation.

Pax et bonum !

Dr. Alexandru S. Bologa

"Cercetari marine-Recherches marines", INCDM, Constanta, 36,
2006, Notes, 489-490