Perceptive insights into a consistently dysfunctional international relationship.
Coming of age in the 1970s, Weisberg was taught that the Soviet Union was communist and politically repressive and the U.S. was the opposite. Then the Soviet Union collapsed, and the new Russia embraced Christianity and capitalism but remained repressive—although less so. Relations improved but then deteriorated into what many call a second cold war. Weisberg, a levelheaded analyst, maintains that the rise of an assertive Russia under Putin convinced American leaders that the evil empire had returned. The author adds that American politicians regularly proclaim that people throughout the world yearn for democracy, although the efforts to spread it have been uniformly disastrous. To Russians, democracy arrived in the 1990s with crime, anarchy, and severe economic hardship. Taking office in 1999, Putin reasserted government authority. The stability and prosperity that followed came with significant restrictions on freedom but also made him very popular. Unlike his Soviet predecessors, Putin kept his ambitions local, but the U.S. didn’t see it that way. Though promising otherwise, the U.S. swept former satellites into NATO, reviving Soviet fears of being surrounded by enemies. Despite unedifying American policies in Cuba and Latin America, U.S. officials denounced Russian bullying of its neighbors and supported heavy economic sanctions. Readers outraged at Russian cyberattacks may be surprised to learn that America has long been doing the same. Russian historians emphasize that America was largely founded by slave owners. When they claim that America conducted a genocidal slaughter of Native peoples, Americans often respond that Stalin killed millions—not exactly evidence of moral purity on either side. Weisberg clearly knows his stuff, and while his suggestions on how to fix matters may be too sensible to appeal to patriots from either nation, readers will have no doubt that our current approach is not working.
Perceptive insights into a consistently dysfunctional international relationship.Pub Date: Sept. 28, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5417-6862-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A horde-pleaser, well-written and full of surprises.
“The Mongols swept across the globe as conquerors,” writes the appreciative pop anthropologist-historian Weatherford (The History of Money, 1997, etc.), “but also as civilization’s unrivaled cultural carriers.”
No business-secrets fluffery here, though Weatherford does credit Genghis Khan and company for seeking “not merely to conquer the world but to impose a global order based on free trade, a single international law, and a universal alphabet with which to write all the languages of the world.” Not that the world was necessarily appreciative: the Mongols were renowned for, well, intemperance in war and peace, even if Weatherford does go rather lightly on the atrocities-and-butchery front. Instead, he accentuates the positive changes the Mongols, led by a visionary Genghis Khan, brought to the vast territories they conquered, if ever so briefly: the use of carpets, noodles, tea, playing cards, lemons, carrots, fabrics, and even a few words, including the cheer hurray. (Oh, yes, and flame throwers, too.) Why, then, has history remembered Genghis and his comrades so ungenerously? Whereas Geoffrey Chaucer considered him “so excellent a lord in all things,” Genghis is a byword for all that is savage and terrible; the word “Mongol” figures, thanks to the pseudoscientific racism of the 19th century, as the root of “mongoloid,” a condition attributed to genetic throwbacks to seed sown by Mongol invaders during their decades of ravaging Europe. (Bad science, that, but Dr. Down’s son himself argued that imbeciles “derived from an earlier form of the Mongol stock and should be considered more ‘pre-human, rather than human.’ ”) Weatherford’s lively analysis restores the Mongols’ reputation, and it takes some wonderful learned detours—into, for instance, the history of the so-called Secret History of the Mongols, which the Nazis raced to translate in the hope that it would help them conquer Russia, as only the Mongols had succeeded in doing.
A horde-pleaser, well-written and full of surprises.Pub Date: March 2, 2004
ISBN: 0-609-61062-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A compelling journey into the heart of darkness with an articulate, capable guide.
An investigation of evil and how it manifests in our society.
As an acclaimed journalist, Sullivan, author of Graveyard of the Pacific, Dead Wrong, and other books, thought of himself as a man of reason and intelligence, with a good dose of cynicism. Then, when covering the wars that tore apart Yugoslavia, he confronted too many atrocities to believe that nothing was behind them. The author sensed the presence of evil and began to research the origin of it, which led him to the fundamental figure of malignity. While researching the book, Sullivan brushed against inexplicable, personal incidents—e.g., a weird threat from a well-dressed stranger, an ominous letter in his mailbox, the dream image of a black dog. The author shows how Christianity gave the Devil a personification, a central role, and a name. Sullivan looks at the theologians who wrestled with the conflict between the persistence of evil and the presence of an omnipotent God, finding that none of them reached a satisfying conclusion. He also studies a number of serial killers and murders, as well as accounts of a carefully documented, nightmarish exorcism that lasted four months in Iowa in 1928. Yet somehow, writes Sullivan, the Devil has been able to convince everyone that he does not exist, so is “able to hide in plain sight because of the cover we all give him with our fear, our denial, our rationalization, [and] our deluded sense of enlightenment.” The author believes that the Devil is real, but, he adds, each of us is responsible for our own decisions. This is not an easy book to read, and some parts are profoundly disturbing. Sullivan offers crucial insights, but timid readers should think carefully before entering its dark labyrinth.
A compelling journey into the heart of darkness with an articulate, capable guide.Pub Date: May 14, 2024
ISBN: 9780802119131
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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