In 2014 Crimea shapes the headlines much as it did some 110 years ago, when the Crimean War pitted Britain, France & Turkey against Russia. Yet few books have been published on the history of the peninsula. For many readers, Crimea seems as remote today as it was when colonised by the ancient Greeks. Neil Kent`s book recounts the history of the Crimea over three millennia. A crossroads between Europe & Asia, ships sailed to & from Crimean ports, forming a bridge that carried merchandise & transmitted ideas & innovations. Greeks, Scythians, Tartars, Russians, Armenians & Genoese are among those who settled the peninsula since antiquity, a demographic patchwork that reflects its geography. The religious beliefs of its inhabitants are almost as numerous: the Hebraicised beliefs of the Karaim Tartars, Islam, Judaisim, Russian & Greek Orthodoxy, as well as Roman Catholicism. This mosaic is also reflected in places of worship & the palaces which still adorn Crimea: imperial Romanov Massandra, the `noble nest` of Prince Voronzov at Alupca or the Palace of Bakhchisaray built for the Tartar Khan. For some two centuries balmy Yalta & its environs were a veritable Black Sea Riviera, where Churchill, Roosevelt & Stalin met at the end of the Second World War.