What a bloody, despairing country! My grandparents came over before the first world war and things got much worse after that. It's in many ways a history of Europe in the first part of the century and is heartbreaking. I don't know that my generation can understand what they went through as millions died in the first and second world wars.

It wasn't just the battles, or the diseases (which killed millions) but the bloody reprisals and murders of men, women and children from both sides. It's like all of Europe was in an unthinking frenzy. Bosnia and Serbia are the remnants of this unthinking ethnic and racial hatred.

Bolsheviks, white Russians, socialists, German monarchists, Latvian nationalists and others butchered each other and the population back and forth across Latvia. Not that this was all new to Latvia. Basically a German aristocracy ran the country for hundreds of years under not only Germany but Russia. They considered the native Latvians to be little better than animals. In fact, the animals cost more.

I'm only about half way through but I do need to go to bed so I'll have to finish it tomorrow. Now that I've found this author I'll have to check out his other books (and so do "books to read" lists grow). I already have so many other books that I want to read that I feel overwhelmed by the literary riches out there.