A subtle, profound, and authoritative assessment of the life and sudden death of the Soviet military by the former director of the National Security Agency. By almost every measure, the Soviet armed forces were the largest in the world. By 1985, they were nearly 6 million strong, with another 25 million reserves. Behind that force stood a military-industrial complex far larger than the West understood, accounting for at least 20 percent and perhaps more than 30 percent of GNP. It was plain to Mikhail Gorbachev and even to military leaders that, if the Soviet Union was to deal with its economic crisis, it had to bring these expenditures under control. The genius of this analysis is to show how a —cold, calculating, and brilliantly duplicitous— Gorbachev outmaneuvered not only his opponents in the Politburo and the military but even himself. His weakness in economics has been widely commented on, but Odom shows that his large, unilateral reductions in the size of Soviet forces, intended to show the West that the Soviet Union was serious about negotiating mutual reductions, began the process of disintegration. Glasnost also turned a harsh light on the realities of military life. Odom argues that there was a serious moral deterioration in the military in the1970s and ’80s, that hazing became increasingly dangerous and uncontrolled, and that resistance to conscription developed rapidly. Many in the military saw the danger and opposed his policies, but the close relationship between the party and the armed forces made independent action difficult. The military leadership was also —too corrupt, weak, careerist, and indecisive to act on its own.— The final irony was when a group of generals around Yeltsin, for corrupt reasons of their own, schemed to prevent the Soviet military resuscitation in the short-lived Commonwealth of Independent States’ armed forces. A careful, thoughtful, and outstanding contribution to the understanding of a tumultous period.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-300-07469-7
Page Count: 520
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1998
HISTORY | MILITARY | WORLD | GENERAL HISTORY
Chronology, photographs and personal knowledge combine to make a memorable commemorative presentation.
Jackie Kennedy's secret service agent Hill and co-author McCubbin team up for a follow-up to Mrs. Kennedy and Me (2012) in this well-illustrated narrative of those five days 50 years ago when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
Since Hill was part of the secret service detail assigned to protect the president and his wife, his firsthand account of those days is unique. The chronological approach, beginning before the presidential party even left the nation's capital on Nov. 21, shows Kennedy promoting his “New Frontier” policy and how he was received by Texans in San Antonio, Houston and Fort Worth before his arrival in Dallas. A crowd of more than 8,000 greeted him in Houston, and thousands more waited until 11 p.m. to greet the president at his stop in Fort Worth. Photographs highlight the enthusiasm of those who came to the airports and the routes the motorcades followed on that first day. At the Houston Coliseum, Kennedy addressed the leaders who were building NASA for the planned moon landing he had initiated. Hostile ads and flyers circulated in Dallas, but the president and his wife stopped their motorcade to respond to schoolchildren who held up a banner asking the president to stop and shake their hands. Hill recounts how, after Lee Harvey Oswald fired his fatal shots, he jumped onto the back of the presidential limousine. He was present at Parkland Hospital, where the president was declared dead, and on the plane when Lyndon Johnson was sworn in. Hill also reports the funeral procession and the ceremony in Arlington National Cemetery. “[Kennedy] would have not wanted his legacy, fifty years later, to be a debate about the details of his death,” writes the author. “Rather, he would want people to focus on the values and ideals in which he so passionately believed.”
Chronology, photographs and personal knowledge combine to make a memorable commemorative presentation.Pub Date: Nov. 19, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4767-3149-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A timely contribution to the discussion of a crucial issue.
A history of the right to vote in America.
Since the nation’s founding, many Americans have been uneasy about democracy. Law and policy expert Waldman (The Second Amendment: A Biography, 2014, etc.), president of New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, offers a compelling—and disheartening—history of voting in America, from provisions of the Constitution to current debates about voting rights and campaign financing. In the Colonies, only white male property holders could vote and did so in public, by voice. With bribery and intimidation rampant, few made the effort. After the Revolution, many states eliminated property requirements so that men over 21 who had served in the militia could vote. But leaving voting rules to the states disturbed some lawmakers, inciting a clash between those who wanted to restrict voting and those “who sought greater democracy.” That clash fueled future debates about allowing freed slaves, immigrants, and, eventually, women to vote. In 1878, one leading intellectual railed against universal suffrage, fearing rule by “an ignorant proletariat and a half-taught plutocracy.” Voting corruption persisted in the 19th century, when adoption of the secret ballot “made it easier to stuff the ballot box” by adding “as many new votes as proved necessary.” Southern states enacted disenfranchising measures, undermining the 15th Amendment. Waldman traces the campaign for women’s suffrage; the Supreme Court’s dismal record on voting issues (including Citizens United); and the contentious fight to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which “became a touchstone of consensus between Democrats and Republicans” and was reauthorized four times before the Supreme Court “eviscerated it in 2013.” Despite increased access to voting, over the years, turnout has fallen precipitously, and “entrenched groups, fearing change, have…tried to reduce the opportunity for political participation and power.” Waldman urges citizens to find a way to celebrate democracy and reinvigorate political engagement for all.
A timely contribution to the discussion of a crucial issue.Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1648-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
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