Part history and part autobiography, Walking Since Daybreak tells the tragic story of the Baltic nations before, during and after World War II. Personal stories of the survival or destruction of Modris Ekstein's family members lend an intimate dimension to this vast narrative of those millions who have surged back and forth across the lowlands bordering the Baltic Sea. The immense cataclysm of World War II devastated the Baltic republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, sending many of their inhabitants to the ends of the earth. Walking Since Daybreak belongs in the great tradition of books that redefine our understanding of history, like J.R. Huizinga's The Waning of the Middle Ages and Jacob Burckhardt's The Renaissance in Italy. Ekstein's two-pronged narrative tells many stories, the national loss of the Baltic past and the personal struggle of a displaced family against the backdrop of the larger nature of history itself.
