A close-up look at the most popular figure within the social and political chaos that is today's Russia. The husband-and-wife team of Solovyov and Klepikova (Boris Yeltsin, 1992) have crafted a highly readable account of Zhirinovsky's rise to fame that presents the nationalist leader as a prism through which the bewildering problems of contemporary Russia are refracted. Russia is today faced with a paradoxical dilemma: how to protect democracy from the demagogue who would use democracy to destroy it. For the authors, the key to understanding Zhirinovsky is the Russian concept of the Vozhd', or supreme leader, the Russian equivalent of the German FÅhrer. In contrast to another recent biography (Vladimir Kartsev's !Zhirinovsky!, p. 360), Solovyov and Klepikova insist that Zhirinovsky was born a Jew and has ties to the KGBcharges that he vehemently denies. His anti-Semitism, the authors contend, is closer to that of Marx than Hitler, theoretical rather than visceral. Two photos presented here are revealing: In one, Zhirinovsky is humbly kissing the cross of an Orthodox priest; in another, he is seated at a stripper's club after attending an international conference in Helsinki. In the elections of December 1993, Zhirinovsky's misnamed Liberal Democratic Party garnered 24% of the popular vote. Was it a protest on the part of the Russians or, as the authors suggest, a rejection of democracy itself? The ``last poet of the Russian Empire,'' as the authors call him, Zhirinovsky clearly envisions himself as the savior of his people and many see him that way as well. While not an academic book, the text is enlivened with aphorisms from the great intellectuals of the 19th and 20th centuries such as Marx, Nietzsche, Kafka, Freud, and Gramsci, and spiced with the ancient wisdom of Russian proverbs and literature of Gogol, Pushkin, and others. An insightful and disturbing examination of a dictator-in-the- wings and the creation of a Russian form of fascism.
Pub Date: July 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-201-40948-8
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Addison-Wesley
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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