In this unrelenting biography, former Soviet Colonel General Volkogonov mines archives still closed to historians, interviews eyewitnesses—and presents perhaps the most intimate look to date at Stalin's monstrousness and his nation's complicity. Volkogonov, whose father was murdered in a purge that placed the family under a political cloud, nonetheless rose through Army ranks to become deputy chief of military political indoctrination. He was thus uniquely placed to examine secret Communist Party, NKVD, military, and other archives (and even studied the marginalia of Stalin's private library). Stalin, a masterful actor with an extraordinary memory (especially for grudges), went to great lengths to conceal his role as mass murderer and to establish himself as universal expert and demigod in the public mind: ``the total embodiment of absolute good...[who] repudiates evil, ignorance, treachery, cruelty. He is that smiling man with the moustache who is carrying the little girl waving the flag.'' Going behind this mountain range of deceit, Volkogonov exposes Stalin, who was expelled from seminary, as a man who had an unremarkable Party record under Lenin; who, when he gained total power (through consistent application of coercion and terror), was nonetheless a weak theoretician and an inept military commander; and who systematically executed every official who knew him when he was obscure and could thus threaten his mythology. The author also explores how and why Russia was willing to submit with zest to this regime and to an absolute dictator whose triumph was the nation's tragedy. A riveting account that adds great depth to the widely known outline of Stalin's crimes. (Twenty-four pages of photographs—not seen).
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-8021-1165-3
Page Count: 672
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1991
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Problematic structure aside, a comprehensive history of Latin America's largest country.
A thoroughly documented scholarly treatise on Brazilian history.
In the first of two volumes spanning 500 years of Brazilian history, Hufferd focuses on the first 300 years of colonization in the northeast region. Portugal was seeking to build maritime trade to compete successfully with archrival Spain and to retain its national identity. The colony expanded westward from a number of large tracts of lands called captaincies, granted by Portuguese monarchs to wealthy royal favorites in return for profits gained through trade, breeding cattle and other ventures. These captaincies eventually gained the status of states, including São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Mato Grasso, Manaus and Amazonia. Over subsequent decades, enterprising adventurers and explorers from these captaincies ventured inland, establishing sugar mills, cultivating grazing land and extracting gold, silver and precious gems. All ventures were highly labor-intensive, requiring massive amounts of manpower driven by slaves from Africa and native tribes. In the second volume, Hufferd focuses on the final 200 years of Brazil's rapid industrialization. After the Portuguese monarchy was forced to relocate its base from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, it became the fulcrum of a delicate political system within the new country. The social and political structure favored privileged hereditary landowners, even after the last reigning Emperor Pedro II was deposed amidst strong republican sentiment. Continuing the narrative through 2000, Hufferd chronicles upheavals most often caused by the chronic underdevelopment of existing resources, as the landowners maintained authority over the land, to the detriment of the black, mulatto and tribal segments of Brazilian society, who remained disenfranchised until recent years. In each volume, the author illustrates his vast knowledge of the topic, and he weaves political, economic, social and biographical threads throughout the panoramic narrative. While the expansive footnotes demonstrate impeccable research, they eventually hinder the narrative flow, requiring endless paging back and forth–the dissertation-style format ultimately detracts from the book's impact.
Problematic structure aside, a comprehensive history of Latin America's largest country.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2006
ISBN: 1-4208-0278-X, Vol.
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
At 91, Spock (Dr. Spock on Parenting, 1988, etc.) offers his twilight thoughts on American society—and they're not happy ones. Although Spock's jabs come from the political left, his diagnosis is not unlike that of social conservatives like William Bennett. Among his points: The unraveling of family cohesiveness is a major cause of the country's social ills; there is a ``progressive coarsening of the society's attitude toward love and sexuality, which is further cheapened and exploited by television, films and popular music.'' But Spock also argues for better day-care facilities so that single motherhood needn't sentence both parent and child to poverty. He also discusses racial and gender discrimination. At heart, the old doctor is battling against a bottom-line, instrumental valuation of human life, an obsession with material riches rather than an appreciation of emotional richness.
Pub Date: Sept. 19, 1994
ISBN: 1-882605-12-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1994
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