Lithuania Past and Present

Written by an English diplomat in the years when Lithuanian independence was restored after WWI, this is a very good introduction to Lithuanian history. Harrison provides an outline of the rise of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which spanned from the Baltic to the Black Sea at its peak. This will be interesting for people with some Lithuanian ancestry and people interested in Eastern European history, since these facts are not frequently mentioned in the US public school version of European history.The author provides synopses of royal genealogy, from Gediminas' rise to the rule of western and eastern Lithuania between Kestutis and Algirdas; the liberation of Ukraine from the Golden Horde; the military of alliance with Poland and later union; and a historical summary up to the publishing date. Overall, this is a well researched and concise book, a very good introduction based on Harrison's years of living in Lithuania.

I was very excited to get this book – and then very disappointed when I started reading it. The author is clearly not an English speaker (Probably Lithuanian) and I doubt that's his real name as well! It was very poorly written and very difficult to read. I just couldn't get through it. Maybe I'll pick it up again one day. I'm sure it has great history in it – If you can tolerate the poor English.

It only goes up to the 1920s or so. Most of it seemed to be the author experiences. It is not as good on covering the early history of Lithuania. I only got half way through the book when I lost the book on a trip. I won't order another.

A good brief description of the history of this country which used to amass large territory in Europe and is now less than 3 million populace. It is well written and concise and I would suggest to any reader interested in learning more about Eastern Europe in general or planning to travel to that region.

Just great. Studying my heratige.

Interesting book, but it was written in 1922 so did not live up to title -Lithuania Past and Present.

Useful to me for history of Lithuanian around 1900's.

A good brief synopsis of Lithuania.