Europa Minor

Written by Patrick Balfour (Lord Kinross), the well known Scottish historian, it should have been no surprise that this book if far more history focussed than it is travel focussed, despite bing republished by the Travel Book Club. And thick with history it is, in its short 167 pages.

In the preface the author explains that he travels down from the Asiatic plateau to the lands which lie “without the Taurus” between the mountain barrier and the sea - essentially the coastal regions and the frontiers with Syria and Greece. He considers it a companion book to his previously published Within the Taurus. It also covers not one journey but several over the period 1947 to 1954, and was published in 1956.

It has a few moments of amusement (such as when the author and the Consular-General were briefly placed under arrest by young gendarmes), but is also quite academic in its approach with many references to other books - almost every page with a footnote and sometimes three of four.

Ultimately though it was a fairly dry read, and would find favour only with the reader with a deep interest in the history around these areas, or Turkey in general, but ultimately for the lighter reader it is a fairly dry proposition.

3 stars