A tremendous study of how Putin has tragically manipulated national myths for personal gain and revanchist patriotism.
An eloquent report probes the complicated, competing narratives of Ukraine–Russia history.
Martin Sixsmith is a former BBC Moscow correspondent and author of An Unquiet Heart, and his son, Daniel, is a historian and author of The War of Nerves. Despite the optimism in the West for the emergence of liberal democracy in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the rise of Putin over the last two decades has assured the resurgence of the militarized autocratic model first installed during the time of the Mongols in the 14th century. As a correspondent in Moscow in 1991, Martin joined the triumphal voices at Russia’s disintegration and reported—wrongly, he admits—that “Russia would re-enter the community of nations after seven decades of self-imposed exile and become a responsible member of the international order.” Instead, Putin has only grown more resentful about what the former Soviet Union has lost. Most recently, Putin has reembraced the “Great Russian nationalism” favored by Catherine the Great, and he stresses the concept of Russian vulnerability to Western aggression and the need to protect the allegedly persecuted Russian minorities in places such as the Donbas—hence the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. As the authors note, Hitler used a similar casus belli to invade the Sudetenland in 1938. “Like Stalin before him,” the authors write, “Putin has appointed himself the supreme arbiter of the meaning of history. He declares his strict adherence to historical facts, but they are the ‘facts’ according to the ever-growing number…of Government Organized Non-Governmental Organizations that he himself has created.” As the authors capably demonstrate in this stimulating text, Putin’s massive folly in invading Ukraine—and expecting a warm welcome—has opened a perilous new chapter in the Russian historical narrative.
A tremendous study of how Putin has tragically manipulated national myths for personal gain and revanchist patriotism.Pub Date: March 19, 2024
ISBN: 9781399409865
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Bloomsbury Continuum
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys.
Bearing witness to oppression.
Award-winning journalist and MacArthur Fellow Coates probes the narratives that shape our perception of the world through his reports on three journeys: to Dakar, Senegal, the last stop for Black Africans “before the genocide and rebirth of the Middle Passage”; to Chapin, South Carolina, where controversy erupted over a writing teacher’s use of Between the World and Me in class; and to Israel and Palestine, where he spent 10 days in a “Holy Land of barbed wire, settlers, and outrageous guns.” By addressing the essays to students in his writing workshop at Howard University in 2022, Coates makes a literary choice similar to the letter to his son that informed Between the World and Me; as in that book, the choice creates a sense of intimacy between writer and reader. Interweaving autobiography and reportage, Coates examines race, his identity as a Black American, and his role as a public intellectual. In Dakar, he is haunted by ghosts of his ancestors and “the shade of Niggerology,” a pseudoscientific narrative put forth to justify enslavement by portraying Blacks as inferior. In South Carolina, the 22-acre State House grounds, dotted with Confederate statues, continue to impart a narrative of white supremacy. His trip to the Middle East inspires the longest and most impassioned essay: “I don’t think I ever, in my life, felt the glare of racism burn stranger and more intense than in Israel,” he writes. In his complex analysis, he sees the trauma of the Holocaust playing a role in Israel’s tactics in the Middle East: “The wars against the Palestinians and their Arab allies were a kind of theater in which ‘weak Jews’ who went ‘like lambs to slaughter’ were supplanted by Israelis who would ‘fight back.’” Roiled by what he witnessed, Coates feels speechless, unable to adequately convey Palestinians’ agony; their reality “demands new messengers, tasked as we all are, with nothing less than saving the world.”
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9780593230381
Page Count: 176
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
An engrossing and ominous chronicle, told by a master of the form.
Documenting perilous times.
In his most recent behind-the-scenes account of political power and how it is wielded, Woodward synthesizes several narrative strands, from the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel to the 2024 presidential campaign. Woodward’s clear, gripping storytelling benefits from his legendary access to prominent figures and a structure of propulsive chapters. The run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is tense (if occasionally repetitive), as a cast of geopolitical insiders try to divine Vladimir Putin’s intent: “Doubt among allies, the public and among Ukrainians meant valuable time and space for Putin to maneuver.” Against this backdrop, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham implores Donald Trump to run again, notwithstanding the former president’s denial of his 2020 defeat. This provides unwelcome distraction for President Biden, portrayed as a thoughtful, compassionate lifetime politico who could not outrace time, as demonstrated in the June 2024 debate. Throughout, Trump’s prevarications and his supporters’ cynicism provide an unsettling counterpoint to warnings provided by everyone from former Joint Chief of Staff Mark Milley to Vice President Kamala Harris, who calls a second Trump term a likely “death knell for American democracy.” The author’s ambitious scope shows him at the top of his capabilities. He concludes with these unsettling words: “Based on my reporting, Trump’s language and conduct has at times presented risks to national security—both during his presidency and afterward.”
An engrossing and ominous chronicle, told by a master of the form.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781668052273
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
IN THE NEWS
PERSPECTIVES
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
