TRACING EMPIRE IN RURAL ROMANIA: This is a personal essay with a lot of angles– a contemporary travelogue, an informed appreciation of history, an assessment of current geo-political tensions. It’s personal but definitely not a polemic. Essayist Antonia Colibasanu takes the time to sort through her own thoughts and impressions — and many of them are uncomfortable. “…cohesion stands on the infrastructure built on a common feeling of security” she says, reflecting on a current NATO exercise but also Roman and Byzantine history.

Excerpt:

I hear a middle-aged gentleman from a group of tourists commenting, in front of a map highlighting the borders of the Roman Empire, on the Balkans’ natural belonging to the EU family. In a sense, he was comparing the European Union to an empire. I didn’t dare challenge him, but the comparison made me realize something else. If the EU had built itself as an empire, it would have probably been more effective. After Trajan’s expansionary leadership, his successor Hadrian, after traveling throughout the Empire, decided to renounce the Empire’s enlargement and even some of the lands conquered late by Trajan, focusing instead on improving the Empire’s administration and security. Hadrian decided to reinforce borders by building up limes (walls) wherever needed — ironically for today’s EU troubles, he built the first limes separating England, then under the Roman occupation, from Scotland.