With the authority of personal experience, Sullivan paints a vivid, dark, frightening picture of Russia in the Putin era.
Get ready for Cold War 2.0, according to a key diplomat who has surveyed the battlefield.
As U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2019 to 2022, Sullivan brings a firsthand perspective to this account of the evolving geopolitical landscape. When Trump nominated the author, the president was surprised that anyone would want such a difficult and dangerous task. There was no shortage of crises, from the SolarWinds cyberattack to the arrest of innocent American citizens. There was aggressive harassment by the Russian security services, and on numerous occasions, writes Sullivan, high-level officials simply lied to his face. “Russia is not merely an adversary….Putin’s government in the Kremlin is a self-declared enemy of the United States,” he writes, delivering a portrait of Putin as a man of staggering arrogance, making statements that are so absurd there is little effective way to respond. He continues to be “completely untethered from the truth and facts.” The people around him are largely there to agree with him and flatter him, so groupthink prevailed when Putin made the decision to invade Ukraine in 2022. Sullivan believes that the war has become a de facto battle between Russia and the West, and Ukraine should receive as much support as possible from its allies. Putin has invested too much prestige and ego to ever admit defeat, so there does not appear to be any resolution in sight. In fact, Sullivan cannot foresee any improvement in Russian-U.S. relations from its current nadir. The best way forward for the U.S. is to recognize that it is in a war, gather its will and resources accordingly, and aim to keep the conflict from turning hot. It’s a grim outlook, but Sullivan’s knowledgeable text must be heeded.
With the authority of personal experience, Sullivan paints a vivid, dark, frightening picture of Russia in the Putin era.Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9780316571098
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
A philosophically rich critique of state violence and mass apathy.
An Egyptian Canadian journalist writes searchingly of this time of war.
“Rules, conventions, morals, reality itself: all exist so long as their existence is convenient to the preservation of power.” So writes El Akkad, who goes on to state that one of the demands of modern power is that those subject to it must imagine that some group of people somewhere are not fully human. El Akkad’s pointed example is Gaza, the current destruction of which, he writes, is causing millions of people around the world to examine the supposedly rules-governed, democratic West and declare, “I want nothing to do with this.” El Akkad, author of the novel American War (2017), discerns hypocrisy and racism in the West’s defense of Ukraine and what he views as indifference toward the Palestinian people. No stranger to war zones himself—El Akkad was a correspondent in Afghanistan and Iraq—he writes with grim matter-of-factness about murdered children, famine, and the deliberate targeting of civilians. With no love for Zionism lost, he offers an equally harsh critique of Hamas, yet another one of the “entities obsessed with violence as an ethos, brutal in their treatment of minority groups who in their view should not exist, and self-decreed to be the true protectors of an entire religion.” Taking a global view, El Akkad, who lives in the U.S., finds almost every government and society wanting, and not least those, he says, that turn away and pretend not to know, behavior that we’ve seen before and that, in the spirit of his title, will one day be explained away until, in the end, it comes down to “a quiet unheard reckoning in the winter of life between the one who said nothing, did nothing, and their own soul.”
A philosophically rich critique of state violence and mass apathy.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9780593804148
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A slick, vacuous glimpse into the former first lady’s White House years.
A carefully curated personal portrait.
First ladies’ roles have evolved significantly in recent decades. Their memoirs typically reflect a spectrum of ambition and interests, offering insights into their values and personal lives. Melania Trump, however, stands out as exceptionally private and elusive. Her ultra-lean account attempts to shed light on her public duties, initiatives, and causes as first lady, and it defends certain actions like her controversial “I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?” jacket. The statement was directed at the media, not the border situation, she claims. Yet the book provides scant detail about her personal orbit or day-to-day interactions. The memoir opens with her well-known Slovenian origin story, successful modeling career, and whirlwind romance with Donald Trump, culminating in their 2005 marriage, followed by a snapshot of Election Day 2016: “Each time we were together that day, I was impressed by his calm.…This man is remarkably confident under pressure.” Once in the White House, Melania Trump describes her functions and numerous public events at home and abroad, which she asserts were more accomplished than media representations suggested. However, she rarely shares any personal interactions beyond close family ties, notably her affection for her son, Barron, and her sister, Ines. And of course she lavishes praise on her husband. Minimal anecdotes about White House or cabinet staff are included, and she carefully defuses her rumored tensions with Trump’s adult children, blandly stating, “While we may share the same last name, each of us is distinct with our own aspirations and paths to follow.” Although Melania’s desire to support causes related to children’s and women’s welfare feels authentic, the overall tenor of her memoir seems aimed at painting a glimmering portrait of her husband and her role, likely with an eye toward the forthcoming election.
A slick, vacuous glimpse into the former first lady’s White House years.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9781510782693
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
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