Still, useful reading for those with a passion for geopolitics and a conviction that America should stop hogging the...
It’s a dangerous world out there, getting uglier every day—thanks in large part to the US, which appears to be clueless in foreign policy. So runs one of several provocative arguments in this timely study.
Updating his 1994 The Return of the Strong in light of 9/11 and other world events, British journalist and politician Harvey (“A Few Bloody Noses,” 2002, etc.) accepts as fact that the US is the world’s sole superpower, though he isn’t necessarily happy about it. Part of being the biggest bully on the block, of course, is the attendant loathing and envy of the less powerful, which has intensified in places like Afghanistan; this is especially true when the man at the bully pulpit is unschooled in the ways of the world and likely to turn tail when the weak strike back, as did Bush I in Gulf War I and Clinton in Somalia. At the same time, Harvey writes, the triumph of global capitalism is likely to yield some sick fruit: new variants of the economic system may be on the rise, mixing free-market values with inhumane governance. The result of all this, he holds, is a world infinitely more dangerous for Americans and Westerners at large, and even more unpleasant for everyone else who has to live in it. What’s to be done? Well, Harvey suggests, it might be nice to share some of the power and risk with Europe and Japan, yielding “the kind of global economic management [and policing] that becomes possible in a world of three superstates.” Both description and prescription seem sound enough, even if the argument is full of John Bullish roars (“Africa must be taken in paternalist partnership by Europe”)—and Harvey has a tendency to lose the thread of his argument in a dense web of detail.
Still, useful reading for those with a passion for geopolitics and a conviction that America should stop hogging the business of global domination.Pub Date: March 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-7867-1132-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2003
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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