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- This fascinating book is dense with scholarly historical research, but immensely readable. I picked that book up, and my jaw dropped to my chest. I was was like a woman possessed, I could not put that book down. It tells the story of an Azeri (Azerbajani) young Jew born in 1905, the son of a multi-millionaire oilman from Baku, Azerbijian and a Bolshevik mother who aided Stalin in the days before he became Stalin. When his mother's role was revealed, she committed suicide by drinking acid. Because the Bolsheviks were trying to take over the oil, father and son left, traveling through Persia and other eastern countries. Later, they went back, and Lev (later known as Essad Bey and Kurbain Said) and his father, Abraham Nussimbaum had not been there so very long when they were once again forced to leave, this time travelling West. Lev and his dad thought it better to travel separately, and the 14 year old boy had a harrowing journey until he met up with his father in Georgia, although to the kid's credit, he was uncannily resourceful and never fell prey to depression or fright. Lev became enamored of Moslems in Turkey. His native country was about 1/3 each of Christian, Jewish and Moslem, and they had always gotten along. He and his father wended their way to Paris, to northern Germany, and on to Berlin, where they stayed for a number of years. By this time Lev had converted to Islam, and was going to a (White) Russian emigre high school, and secretly to a German university, to study Oriental affairs. By the time Lev was 32, he had written 12 international best sellers! Also, he was a regular and proliferate contributor to many literary journals throughout the world. The two things that left the most indelible impression on me were the history of the Caucasus region, and the history of post- World War I Germany. Of course, I had known that inflation was staggering, there were riots in the streets, and that Germany had been disarmed at the Versaille Treaty. What I had never known, however, was that from 1918 until 1922, there were 376 assassinations of politicians and bureaucrats throughout Germany, i.e. about one every 4 days! The German government, despite their public propaganda against Bolshevik Russia, had signed a secret treaty with them, and had secret military camps and ammo and chemical warfare factories scattered about Russia. German troops were stationed full-time at these secret enclaves and trained in warfare with their Soviet brethern. Also, in the 1920s, Berlin consisted of about 4 million German inhabitants-- plus about 1/2 million (predominately White) Russian emigres. That's a huge number of "foreigners" at a time when many were still reeling from WWI. I don't mean to give short shrift to Lev, aka Essad Bey and Kurbin Said, but you'll have to read the book. What fascinating reading. It's so incredible, so outrageous. The man was a font of knowledge. He spoke Arabic, English, German, French, Turkish, Italian, Farsi, Azeri, Georgian, Russian, et al. He had changed his name to Essad Bey not to con people, but to live his life as he saw fit. He felt that he had basically been born into the wrong identity, and wanted to change his name and religion to reflect his own views. In many ways, he was also eerily prescient in his evaluations of Stalin and non Arab Muslims' dismay at Western "culture". This book can be read on so many levels, but for me, the historic one enthralled me as no book has for years.
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Format: Paperback
Pages: 464
Language: English
ISBN / ID: 9780099483779
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