The Foreign Service Journal, September 2016

90 SEPTEMBER 2016 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL tively, leaned right to a founding mythol- ogy rooted in the land that easily turned toward the 20th century’s more destruc- tive ideologies of anti-Semitism and fascism. Kaplan also paints a picture of Russian malevolence in the Bal- kans, slowly taking over economi- cally what it can’t, or chooses not to, militarily, by creating massive energy dependence throughout the old southern satellites. Indeed, though only one of two enormous influences over the historical lands of present-day Romania (the other being the Ottoman Empire, or Turkey), Russia looms large in the nar- rative as an ominous cloud the West has failed to notice over the Romanian, and Balkan, horizons. More than once, Kaplan refers to his almost guilty concern that his Balkan Ghosts , in describing the eternal conflicts of the region, led President Bill Clinton and NATO not to intervene early in the former Yugoslavia out of a belief the problems there were intractable. Whether he overestimates his influence or not, Kaplan is clearly scarred (and scared) by the notion that his words could be taken to mean something he didn’t intend. He wants us to understand his dictum that only after knowing a country—its philosophical heritage, its underbelly of oppression, its people at their most elevated and at their most base—should intervention, when necessary, be con- sidered. But, equally crucial, a country’s history—however complicated, however messy, however cyclical—should never be used to justify leaving it to its unhappy fate. An Education in Time and Place In Europe’s Shadow: Two Cold Wars and a Thirty-Year Journey Through Romania and Beyond Robert D. Kaplan, Random House, 2016, $28/hardcover, $18/paperback, $13.99/ Kindle, 287 pages. Reviewed By Tracy Whittington Robert Kaplan’s latest volume, In Europe’s Shadow: Two Cold Wars and aThirty-Year Journey Through Romania and Beyond , indulges his love of this enigmatic country. Part travel writing, part political sci- ence, his eclectic writing style can initially frustrate the reader. Whenever he seems on the verge of providing concrete, factual historical information, he veers into lyri- cism again, musing about a restaurant he visited 20 years earlier. Halfway through the book, he’s still not told the story of Nicolae Ceausescu’s fall (he never does), nor elaborated on his assertion that Romania under the dictator resembled a North Korean personality cult (he eventually will). What he has done is offer a digressive chapter on the battles of medieval voivodes and more than a few blow-by-blow analyses of the writings of Romanian intellectuals in the early 20th century. Early on, it’s difficult to discern his intent. Readers should persist, however, for the book proves far more complex and engaging than its geographically narrow subject would suggest. Kaplan’s central thesis is that Romania has always served as a sort of crossroads, protecting the West from the depredations of Eastern invaders while being left mostly to defend itself. Romania, according to Kaplan, has always looked West and considered itself part of the West. But its intellectuals and revolutionaries have often, counterintui- BOOKS In Europe’s Shadow leaves us far more educated about the country’s past sufferings and present prospects than anticipated. Kaplan’s skill lies in his ability not just to sketch with words, but to paint portraits that evoke eras and locales and nostalgia. His narrative isn’t linear; he skips backward and forward in time. Starting in 1981 with a journal- istic lark fromTel Aviv to Bucharest, he jumps in a mere 250 pages to present-day interviews with former Romanian presidents and a prime minister, to a retelling of the horrors perpetrated by WorldWar II- era ruler Ion Antonescu, to the aforemen- tioned lives of pre–nation state heroes, to bustling Belle Epoque Bucharest. He also transcends location, as he retreats farther afield—from the capital, to modern-day Moldova, to the Romanian heartland, the Transylvanian countryside and, finally, nearby Hungary. Through it all, he repeatedly stops to learn from armchair and actual philosophers, the lat- ter mostly through a close reading of their books and biographies. In Europe’s Shadow captures the imagi- nation and gives readers a visceral sense, perhaps Kaplan’s visceral sense, of Roma- nia. It also leaves us far more educated about the country’s past sufferings and present prospects than anticipated. When so much news about interna- tional affairs is immediate, condensed and resolutely analytical, it can be difficult to release ourselves to the flow of a volume like this, to let it carry us through time and place with no clear destination. But Kaplan has an objective in mind, and when we reach the end, a bit soaked with