On-the-ground reporting meets with strategic analysis to form a nuanced portrait of an ongoing conflict.
British journalist Harding offers a frontline view of the Russian-Ukrainian War.
Although previously bound up with the likes of Edward Snowden, now living in Russia, and Julian Assange, Harding himself is no friend of the Putin regime. Expelled from Russia a decade ago, he now lands on the opposing line, covering the events in Ukraine for the Guardian. Along his meandering course through the embattled country, the author examines rumor and fact. An example of the former was a supposed consultation between Putin and a Siberian shaman in support of his invasion; of the latter, the undeniable tensions that a Westward-turning Ukraine created in a theater of realpolitik that seems increasingly committed to Central Asian autocracy. The current war, Harding writes, is incontestably one of Putin’s choice, though he faults Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for discounting intelligence that suggested that Russia would actually invade: “It caused panic, depressed the economy, spooked foreign investors, and ran down the country’s currency and gold reserves. Why…should Ukraine suffer and its ‘cynical’ neighbor be rewarded?” Even so, Zelenskyy recovered, and one of his “soft-power” tools was to insist on transparency and decentralization even as a secretive, top-heavy Russia tried to make further inroads. Harding, a knowledgeable student of history, is particularly good when he considers Russian errors in the field as near mirror-image re-creations of those errors during World War II, when Stalin’s Russia relied on sacrificing thousands of soldiers to overwhelm a less populous enemy. Indeed, Russia’s wartime state has been “moving even further in the direction of the 1930s, using mechanisms of coercion and intimidation”—even as Ukraine is comparatively free and is able to exercise a secret weapon that’s no secret at all: Russian command is vertical, “always looking feudally upward,” while Ukraine’s is horizontal, with a citizen army bent on remaining democratic.
On-the-ground reporting meets with strategic analysis to form a nuanced portrait of an ongoing conflict.Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2022
ISBN: 9780593685174
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Vintage
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2022
A rousing, suspenseful adventure tale.
A harrowing expedition to Antarctica, recounted by Departures senior features editor Sancton, who has reported from every continent on the planet.
On Aug. 16, 1897, the steam whaler Belgica set off from Belgium with young Adrien de Gerlache as commandant. Thus begins Sancton’s riveting history of exploration, ingenuity, and survival. The commandant’s inexperienced, often unruly crew, half non-Belgian, included scientists, a rookie engineer, and first mate Roald Amundsen, who would later become a celebrated polar explorer. After loading a half ton of explosive tonite, the ship set sail with 23 crew members and two cats. In Rio de Janeiro, they were joined by Dr. Frederick Cook, a young, shameless huckster who had accompanied Robert Peary as a surgeon and ethnologist on an expedition to northern Greenland. In Punta Arenas, four seamen were removed for insubordination, and rats snuck onboard. In Tierra del Fuego, the ship ran aground for a while. Sancton evokes a calm anxiety as he chronicles the ship’s journey south. On Jan. 19, 1898, near the South Shetland Islands, the crew spotted the first icebergs. Rough waves swept someone overboard. Days later, they saw Antarctica in the distance. Glory was “finally within reach.” The author describes the discovery and naming of new lands and the work of the scientists gathering specimens. The ship continued through a perilous, ice-littered sea, as the commandant was anxious to reach a record-setting latitude. On March 6, the Belgica became icebound. The crew did everything they could to prepare for a dark, below-freezing winter, but they were wracked with despair, suffering headaches, insomnia, dizziness, and later, madness—all vividly capture by Sancton. The sun returned on July 22, and by March 1899, they were able to escape the ice. With a cast of intriguing characters and drama galore, this history reads like fiction and will thrill fans of Endurance and In the Kingdom of Ice.
A rousing, suspenseful adventure tale.Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-984824-33-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 29, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
A valuable contribution to our understanding of one of history’s most vital figures.
An epistolary memoir of Nelson Mandela’s prison years.
From August 1962 to February 1990, Mandela (1918-2013) was imprisoned by the apartheid state of South Africa. During his more than 27 years in prison, the bulk of which he served on the notorious Robben Island prison off the shores of Cape Town, he wrote thousands of letters to family and friends, lawyers and fellow African National Congress members, prison officials, and members of the government. Heavily censored for both content and length, letters from Robben Island and South Africa’s other political prisons did not always reach their intended targets; when they did, the censorship could make them virtually unintelligible. To assemble this vitally important collection, Venter (A Free Mind: Ahmed Kathrada's Notebook from Robben Island, 2006, etc.), a longtime Johannesburg-based editor and journalist, pored through these letters in various public and private archives across South Africa and beyond as well as Mandela’s own notebooks, in which he transcribed versions of these letters. The result is a necessary, intimate portrait of the great leader. The man who emerges is warm and intelligent and a savvy, persuasive, and strategic thinker. During his life, Mandela was a loving husband and father, a devotee of the ANC’s struggle, and capable of interacting with prominent statesmen and the ANC’s rank and file. He was not above flattery or hard-nosed steeliness toward his captors as suited his needs, and he was always yearning for freedom, not only—or even primarily—for himself, but rather for his people, a goal that is the constant theme of this collection and was the consuming vision of his entire time as a prisoner. Venter adds tremendous value with his annotations and introductions to the work as a whole and to the book’s various sections.
A valuable contribution to our understanding of one of history’s most vital figures.Pub Date: July 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-63149-117-7
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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