by Rose Brady ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 1999
Under no five-year plan, Russia’s journey to capitalism is a unique occurrence. Brady, Business Week bureau chief in Moscow when the Soviet Union disintegrated, was a witness to the ongoing struggle. The Russian economy has been in severe recession for most of the 1990s (and, according to the Finance Ministry’s latest report, will continue to shrink a lot more). Funds for education, health care, and science have evaporated. The path to the free market has been rough, indeed. Vouchers, issued to all Russians, were to be used to buy shares in state-owned businesses at privatization auctions. They could be sold for cash, too. Not worth much, the vouchers were traded, arbitraged, or placed in dubious investment funds. But the idea of private ownership hasn’t been generally understood. Many barely subsist, trading on street corners and waiting for the state to help while some —new Russians”—often former apparatchiks or insider nomenklatura—have become instant plutocrats. Indigenous mafias and gangsters have joined the party, seizing power by force or fanciful schemes and scams. The most promising cases are dogged by adversity. Brady describes the Vladimir Tractor Factory and interviews its management as an example. She interviews citizens in the street (literally) who cope with hyperinflation and she talks with the privatization czar. The rough politics of the last presidential election and the current economic policy are parsed impartially. Through much of the time since the fall of the Soviet regime the author seemed to think that it might all come together somehow. Yet the national fisc is still no healthier than Boris Yeltsin. In a postscript, she acknowledges the default in Russian debt, the bare spots on store shelves, and the exhaustion of policy. The aspect is Chekhovian, indeed. The sorrowful story could cause a seismic perturbation in the neighborhood of London’s Highgate Cemetery (where Karl Marx lies buried). But in Russia a story is never ended. “Pozhivyom uvidem,” says the author. “We will live and see.” (30 photos)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-300-07793-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1998
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by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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