In this fascinating journey through the history and culture of the Danube, Claudio Magris, whose knowledge is encyclopedic and curiosity limitless, invites the reader to accompany him along the whore course of the river, from the Bavarian hills through Austro-Hungary and the Balkans to the Black Sea. In each town he raises the ghosts that inhabit the houses and monuments: Kafka and Freud; Wittgenstein and Marcus Aurelius; Lukacs, Heidegger, and Celine; Canetti and Ovid. He also encounters a host of more obscure but no less intriguing personalities -- philosophers, novelists, diplomats, and patriots -- on an odyssey that brings middle-European culture to rife in its most picturesque and evocative forms.