A small book that does much to explain the underlying dynamics of Russia’s imperial ambitions.
A Russian security expert and democratic activist examines the thinking that led to his nation’s invasion of Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin’s decision to launch a “special military operation” against Ukraine in 2022 was, writes Gel’man, “probably the worst decision ever made by Russia’s rulers in the country’s long history.” Yet, he adds, the question to pose does less to examine that poor decision as such but instead to ask why the invasion was done “in such a poorly prepared, outstandingly inefficient, and heavily destructive way.” The answer to that question is manifold, but an important aspect is that Russia has “outsized international aspirations” that presume that it has a place of supreme importance in the world, especially relative to the European Union, which Putin considers to be weak. Another aspect is the Russian military’s devotion to the doctrine of “small victorious war,” which so often leads to disaster, as in Chechnya, Afghanistan, and indeed Ukraine. A cult of personality is in operation, too, with the assumption that Russia will achieve that international importance because of the “strong and efficient leadership” of Putin. Regrettably for Russia, that leadership has instead led to, yes, disaster, with Russia losing more soldiers than in any other conflict since World War II, a mass brain-drain emigration, and the nation’s estrangement from the rest of the world. Gel’man ventures a few surprising observations, such as the debt that Putin’s “Ukraine is Russia” fixation owes to the writings of American clash-of-civilizations scholar Samuel P. Huntington. He also offers the thought that at least part of the blame for Putin’s rise to power and the current war owes to the West, which has offered little in the way of support for democracy within Russia and little in the way of “constraining its aggressive foreign policy.”
A small book that does much to explain the underlying dynamics of Russia’s imperial ambitions.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781509559428
Page Count: 220
Publisher: Polity
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2025
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
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