Awards

• Runner-up for Best Book on Baltic Studies 2020 (United States)

Overview

Founded as an ecclesiastical center, trading hub, and intended capital of a feudal state, Riga was Old Livonia's greatest city and its indispensable port. Because the city was situated in what was initially remote and inhospitable territory, surrounded by pagans and coveted by regional powers like Poland, Sweden, and Muscovy, it was also a fortress encased by a wall. The House of Hemp and Butter begins in the twelfth century with the arrival to the eastern Baltic of German priests, traders, and knights, who conquered and converted the indigenous tribes and assumed mastery over their lands. It ends in 1710 with an account of the greatest war Livonia had ever seen, one that was accompanied by mass starvation, a terrible epidemic, and a flood of nearly biblical proportions that devastated the city and left its survivors in misery. Readers will learn about Riga's people-merchants and clerics, craftsmen and builders, porters and day laborers-about its structures and spaces, its internal conflicts and its unrelenting struggle to maintain its independence against outside threats. The House of Hemp and Butter is an indispensable guide to a quintessentially European city located in one of the continent's more remote corners.

Full Product Details

9781501772429

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Reviews

O'Connor's book is a portrait of a city that is no more, a city whose citizens and guests redefined themselves many times, but not along the lines that today's Rigans would recognize. While the author reminds us that the past is a foreign country, he all the same encourages the reader to see societies as ever-changing entities, exposing the claims to Europe's historical homogeneity as myths built on faulty foundations. * The Russian Review * ... careful research is combined with a lively and colourful style.... This vivid and readable account is an excellent concise exposition of the early history of a great city. * Journal of European Studies * The House of Hemp and Butter is an impeccably-researched and very engagingly written account of Riga's fascinating social, economic, and political history. * New Books Network *

Author Information

Kevin C. O'Connor is Professor of History at Gonzaga University. He is author of a number of books, including, The History of the Baltic States, Culture and Customs of the Baltic States, and Intellectuals and Apparatchiks.

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