Patrick Love

Robert Imbrie: On the front lines of history

Revisado: 12-22-22

I only listened to On Distant Service because I happened to meet the author while on a group trip in Iceland. I listened out of curiosity as this was her first book, which she researched and wrote after a long career as a teacher. I was pleasantly surprised by the experience, learned a lot, and can highly recommend this book. Yes, it is the story of Robert Whitney Imbrie who was killed in Tehren in 1924, but more than that, it is a story of the 10-year period (1914-1924) that dramatically reshaped eastern Europe and the world. It turns out that I knew virtually nothing about the Great War (WWI) and its aftermath. Through the experiences of Imbrie, Stein does a remarkable job of painting a dynamic picture of the global transformations occurring at that time. Imbrie was on the frontlines of many of these events. He was a volunteer ambulance driver in France during WWI, spent time in Russia during the Russian Revolution, found himself in Finland and Turkey tracking Bolshevik activity, and, finally, in Persia (today's Iran). Stein does a great job of writing a coherent story even though Imbrie's widow had all his personal writings and correspondence destroyed after his death.

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