An original analysis of a crucial period of history, providing important context for the present.
An intriguing new history about how the Cold War was primarily a conflict of psychology.
Sixsmith, who reported on Russia for the BBC during the 1980s, delves into the psychological issues of the time, especially the thinking of the leaders and the reactions of ordinary people. He believes that the two sides continually failed to comprehend each other’s beliefs and motivations, seeing themselves as morally superior and the other as the font of all evil. The Americans never grasped the nexus between communist ideology and the Russian cultural tradition of centralized power, and Soviet leaders always believed that the U.S. was controlled by a secret cabal of billionaires and generals. This lack of understanding was crucial given the nuclear arsenals involved. “The inherent flaw of brinkmanship is to assume that each side agrees where the brink is,” writes the author. “But as Washington and Moscow pushed each other into increasingly aggressive stances, it was never completely clear that the Soviets and Americans truly knew where or when the tipping point might come.” To build popular support, the two superpowers churned out propaganda, particularly cinema. Sixsmith notes that Vladimir Putin decided to join the KGB after seeing a movie about secret agent Belov, a Soviet version of James Bond. However, the essential weakness of autocracy is that it cannot renew itself through self-criticism or elections. Eventually, in the long decay of the Brezhnev era, there was no way to match the Soviet regime’s message of prosperity and freedom with the lived reality. Russians simply ceased to believe in socialism, as the author’s chapter on the jokes of the period reveals. The U.S., for all its deficiencies, has retained many of its core beliefs. Sixsmith covers a great deal of territory, and the text is long and often dense. But there are useful lessons for the current geopolitical landscape, and the author’s essential point—know yourself in order to know the Other—is as valuable as ever.
An original analysis of a crucial period of history, providing important context for the present.Pub Date: July 5, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-63936-181-6
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Pegasus
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
HISTORY | PSYCHOLOGY | MODERN | MILITARY | WORLD
Deliberately provocative, with much for left-inclined activists to ponder.
A wide-ranging critique of leftist politics as not being left enough.
Continuing his examination of progressive reform movements begun with The Cult of Smart, Marxist analyst deBoer takes on a left wing that, like all political movements, is subject to “the inertia of established systems.” The great moment for the left, he suggests, ought to have been the summer of 2020, when the murder of George Floyd and the accumulated crimes of Donald Trump should have led to more than a minor upheaval. In Minneapolis, he writes, first came the call from the city council to abolish the police, then make reforms, then cut the budget; the grace note was “an increase in funding to the very department it had recently set about to dissolve.” What happened? The author answers with the observation that it is largely those who can afford it who populate the ranks of the progressive movement, and they find other things to do after a while, even as those who stand to benefit most from progressive reform “lack the cultural capital and economic stability to have a presence in our national media and politics.” The resulting “elite capture” explains why the Democratic Party is so ineffectual in truly representing minority and working-class constituents. Dispirited, deBoer writes, “no great American revolution is coming in the early twenty-first century.” Accommodation to gradualism was once counted heresy among doctrinaire Marxists, but deBoer holds that it’s likely the only truly available path toward even small-scale gains. Meanwhile, he scourges nonprofits for diluting the tax base. It would be better, he argues, to tax those who can afford it rather than allowing deductible donations and “reducing the availability of public funds for public uses.” Usefully, the author also argues that identity politics centering on difference will never build a left movement, which instead must find common cause against conservatism and fascism.
Deliberately provocative, with much for left-inclined activists to ponder.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781668016015
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
Less a sequel than an addendum, the book offers a close-up view of the Oval Office in its darkest hour.
Four decades after Watergate shook America, journalist Woodward (The Price of Politics, 2012, etc.) returns to the scandal to profile Alexander Butterfield, the Richard Nixon aide who revealed the existence of the Oval Office tapes and effectively toppled the presidency.
Of all the candidates to work in the White House, Butterfield was a bizarre choice. He was an Air Force colonel and wanted to serve in Vietnam. By happenstance, his colleague H.R. Haldeman helped Butterfield land a job in the Nixon administration. For three years, Butterfield worked closely with the president, taking on high-level tasks and even supervising the installation of Nixon’s infamous recording system. The writing here is pure Woodward: a visual, dialogue-heavy, blow-by-blow account of Butterfield’s tenure. The author uses his long interviews with Butterfield to re-create detailed scenes, which reveal the petty power plays of America’s most powerful men. Yet the book is a surprisingly funny read. Butterfield is passive, sensitive, and dutiful, the very opposite of Nixon, who lets loose a constant stream of curses, insults, and nonsensical bluster. Years later, Butterfield seems conflicted about his role in such an eccentric presidency. “I’m not trying to be a Boy Scout and tell you I did it because it was the right thing to do,” Butterfield concedes. It is curious to see Woodward revisit an affair that now feels distantly historical, but the author does his best to make the story feel urgent and suspenseful. When Butterfield admitted to the Senate Select Committee that he knew about the listening devices, he felt its significance. “It seemed to Butterfield there was absolute silence and no one moved,” writes Woodward. “They were still and quiet as if they were witnessing a hinge of history slowly swinging open….It was as if a bare 10,000 volt cable was running through the room, and suddenly everyone touched it at once.”
Less a sequel than an addendum, the book offers a close-up view of the Oval Office in its darkest hour.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1644-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2015
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