Synopses & Reviews
In 1919 Charlotte Anita Whitney, a wealthy white woman, received one of the first Communist Labor Party membership cards for the charter group of the northern California Communist Labor Party. Less than a decade later in Berkeley, California, a Jewish woman named Dorothy Ray Healey became a card-carrying member of the Young Communist League. Nearly forty years later, in 1966, Kendra Claire Harris Alexander, a mixed-race woman, enlisted with the Los Angeles branch of the Communist Party, determined to promote class equality.
and#160;In Gendering Radicalism, Beth Slutsky examines how American leftist radicalism was experienced through the lives of these three women who led the California branches of the Communist Party from its founding in 1919 to its near dissolution in 1992. Separately, each woman represents a generation of the membership and activism of the party. Collectively, Slutsky argues, their individual histories tell the story of one of the most infamous organizations this country has ever known and in a broader sense represent the story of all women who have devoted their lives to radicalism in America. Slutsky considers how gender politics, Californiaand#8217;s political climate, coalitions with other activist groups and local communities, and generational dynamics created a grassroots Communist movement distinct from the Communist parties in the Soviet Union and Europe. An ambitious comparative study, Gendering Radicalism demonstrates the continuity and changes of the party both within and among three generations of its female leadersand#8217; lives.
Review
"David Satter has written a compelling and provocative indictment of post-Soviet Russia. He grounds his stern judgment in years of his own reporting on real people's experiences, and he brings to the task he has set himself a powerful intellect. This book is a major contribution to the debate over what has happened in Russiaand why, and what it means."Strobe Talbott, president, The Brookings Institution
-- Paul Schroeder
Review
"In exploring the global prehistory of the horrific forms of societal violence usually associated with the twentieth century, Kiernan identifies key factors that have been consistently associated with genocidal episodes. His book makes an original contribution to our understanding of the phenomenon."Michael Adas, Rutgers University
-- Publishers Weekly
Review
“Ben Kiernans
Blood and Soil is a major work explaining myths and metaphors that have underwritten genocide for six hundred yearsearlier within the bowels of the western tradition; now commonplace practice far beyond that tradition. In seeing genocide as linked to issues of land as well as race, nation, and expansion, Kiernan has opened up social, political, and economic analysis to the struggle for land and the control of property. Such an approach is unique as it is provocative. It is inspired by the authors profound reading of Cambodia and Southeast Asia.
Blood and Soil provides an angle of vision rarely found in those who start (and stop) with a European base of scholarship. The book opens up new questions and formulations on the nature of state inspired murder. It merits a close reading of the dark side of terror, often commented upon, but rarely probed.”Irving Louis Horowitz, Rutgers University
-- Michael Adas
Review
"Blood and Soil is a stunning achievement. The idea for the project was clearly a prompting of the heart, but the argument itself is a thing of pure intellect. It surveys thousands of years, visits every corner of the world, and stares with scarcely a blink at the worst horrors the world has ever known. As an act of scholarship, it simply stands alone.”Kai Erikson, Yale University
-- Irving Louis Horowitz
Review
“Ben Kiernans book is a major contribution to genocide studies a first attempt to tell the history of genocidal events, from Sparta to DarfurBlood and Soil is a well-researched, detailed account of many instances of mass killings and the reasons for their occurrence. It will no doubt give rise to controversy, new research, and new insights.”Yehuda Bauer, Yad Vashem -- Kai Erikson
Review
"This grim account of history notes remarkable parallels in the patterns of mass slaughter, from Carthage to Darfur. With references to the genocides sanctioned by the Bible, its ghastly reading. Yet you also cant help feeling a measure of progress over the centuries."Nicholas D. Kristof, New-York Historical Society series "Books That Matter," New York Times Book Review -- Yehuda Bauer
Review
"Both because of [Kiernans] academic credentials and the scope of the work Blood and Soil is a must-read book. . . . [it] should be read by anyone who wants to get a better handle to the historical scope of genocide."J.D. Bowers, E-Wareness!, Genocide and Human Rights Institute -- Nicholas D. Kristof - New York Times Book Review
Review
“. . . the first synthetic, single-authored global history to connect state power and formation to violence through the willful extermination and attempted extermination of peoples. Its reach is not only global, it is also temporal, as the book examines violence through time.”--Audra Simpson,
Journal of Asian Studies
-- Sarah Abrevaya Stein - Association of Jewish Studies Review
Review
"Kiernan here offers a beautifully written study that is both global and historical. . . .
Blood and Soil represents a major advancement in the comparative study of genocide that will demand the attention of all scholars of political violence."--Audra, Simpson,
The Review of Politics -- Audra Simpson - Journal of Asian Studies
Review
"Genocide scholars and those with an interest in world history should be grateful for Kiernans latest stimulating work."--Donald W. Beachler,
Holocaust and Genocide Studies -- Audra Simpson - The Review of Politics
Review
"
Blood and Soil is more than another work of history--it is a tool for waging peace."-
-Air Force Research Institute -- Donald W. Beachler - Holocaust and Genocide Studies
Review
"So outstandingly authoritative and convincing is this material that it will take an honored place alongside the basic sources on Soviet espionage in the United States. Here, the heart of the KGB is laid out as never before."Tennent Bagley, author of
Spy Wars -- Kathleen McCartney
Review
“This work should serve as the final salv -- Tennent Bagley
Review
“An original and important book based on scholarship of the highest standards.”Hayden B. Peake, former Army and CIA intelligence officer -- David Murphy
Review
"Using now available Soviet sources, this valuable book tells the sobering and frightening story of the extent to which ideology will blind clever people and lead them to betray their country, democracy and freedom."Paul Johnson, author of
A History of the American People -- Hayden B. Peake
Review
“This is an important book for students of history and espionage.”Philadelphia Inquirer -- Paul Johnson
Review
"[The book] succeeds as an indictment of an entire era in which some of the nations best and brightest sold their souls to a foreign masterand as a stinging, definitive rebuttal to those who have defended Alger Hiss all of these years."Justin Raimondo, The American Conservative -- Philadelphia Inquirer
Review
"[
Spies] shows how the Soviets went about the business of spying, its failures and successes, and, most interestingly, the names of the Americans from whom the KGB received information."Alex Kingsbury,
US News & World Report -- Justin Raimondo - American Conservative
Review
“John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, and Alexander Vassiliev present persuasive evidence.”--Commonweal -- Alex Kingsbury - US News and World Report
Review
Finalist for the 2009 Book of the Year Award, presented by ForeWord magazine -- Commonweal
Review
“This magisterial book transcends the old debates and paradigms, and provides the most complete and thorough account of what Soviet espionage agents actually did in the United States.”--Ronald Radosh,
The Weekly Standard
-- Book of the Year Award - ForeWord Magazine
Review
“A major contribution to our understanding of how American readings of the course of the Cold War . . . have influenced American foreign policy since 1993. Matlock shows in convincing detail why these readings are fundamentally wrong and, in a reasoned argumentative voice, dangerous for the national interests of the United States.”Allen Lynch, University of Virginia
-- Foreign Affairs
Review
“This book is as close as we may come to understanding the distortions ideology played in misunderstanding the Cold War and in applying those distortions thereafter. This is an extraordinary work which should become a standard reference for practitioners, scholars, and concerned citizens for decades to come.”Gary Hart, Former United States Senator (Ret.), Co-chair, Commission on U.S.-Russian Relations
-- Allen Lynch
Review
"Avoiding partisanship and personal agenda, Matlock uses his experience as a seasoned diplomat to deliver a powerful critique of US foreign policy over the last 30 years.
Superpower Illusions is at times scathing, always insightful, and long overdue."Susan Eisenhower, author of
Partners in Space: US-Russian Cooperation after the Cold War -- Gary Hart
Review
“A well written, clearly reasoned and thoroughly informed tour of the past half century of American diplomacyincluding the roots of its successes and failuresled by a superbly qualified participant. A brilliant book.”Sidney Drell, Stanford University
-- Susan Eisenhower
Review
"A truly remarkable book, both wise and provocative, telling a sad yet instructive story of how the United States failed to exploit a triumph in the Cold War to build a new international order reflecting U.S. interests and principles." Dimitri Simes, President, The Nixon Center
-- Sidney Drell
Review
"[Matlocks] biography alone makes this account of the end of the Cold War essential reading, but what makes it even more compelling is [his] thesis...Since the myth of Americas victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War remains an article of faith for many, it is especially valuable that one of its chief protagonists has now so painstakingly dismantled it."--Nicolai N. Petro -- Dimitri Simes
Review
“A fascinating, deeply thoughtful and researched study that contributes mightily to the ongoing humanist debate.”—Kirkus Reviews
Review
“Satters reflective, expert analysis of a Russian society in moral and cultural flux after the end of communism provides great food for thought beyond todays headlines.”—Publishers Weekly
Review
“A sweeping study of how the former Soviet Unions bloody past continues to poison Russias present and threatens to strangle the countrys future.”—Newsweek
Review
“A book full of vivid and well-chosen anecdotes.”—Financial Times
Review
"David Satter delivers one of the most harrowing stories of all time. . . This is a rare book by many measures, not least of which is the way in which Satter captures the magnitude of Russian atrocities and the frightening realities that people accept as part of their daily lives. By no means is Russia unique in being a nation that must grapple with the question of national cruelty and corruption. . . but its rich history makes it story all the more fascinating—and tragic."—Jedd Beaudoin, PopMatters
Review
"A meticulous, sweeping and wrenching history of Russia's burial of Soviet crimes. It is also a sensitive, compelling and convincing exploration of the importance of memory. But it makes a broader contention - that forgetting is a symptom of an illness that Russia contracted before the Soviet era. . . a humane, measured, first-hand, historically and philosophically rooted argument that is hard to refute."—Andrew Gardner, European Voice
Review
"David Satter has written a book full of vivid and well chosen anecdotes. . . . The use of nostalgia is Satter's field. Russia is not, he believes, able to give itself a chance; in love with their chains, its people cannot face up to the horrors of a past they wish to ignore or romanticize."—John Lloyd, Financial Times
Review
"Impeccably argued. . . Satter is a man whom no Russian leader would wish to meet, let alone shake by the hand, but he has their measure."—Donald Rayfield, Literary Review
Review
“A meticulous, sweeping and wrenching history of Russia's burial of Soviet crimes … [and] a sensitive, compelling and convincing exploration of the importance of memory.”—European Voice
Review
"[Satter] does a brilliant job of chronicling the human consequences of Communism."—The National Review
Review
"David Satter has really captured the role of the past in the present in Russia. . . . He feels that the Soviet Union hollowed out both public and private morality and left people without a moral compass when it collapsed. . . . The title of his book is the quintessence of the Putinist attitude to the past."—Edward Lucas, The Browser
Review
“Satter grapples with an elemental failing of Russias leaders and people. . . . Russia, he argues, refuses to face the fundamental moral depravity of its Soviet past. . . . Expansive and brilliantly explored . . . compelling.”—Foreign Affairs
Review
“Truly illuminating….Satter is both a gifted journalist and a chronicler of intellectual and political currents….Splendidly researched and engagingly written, this book offers invaluable vignettes of various reactions to the still unprocessed remembrance of totalitarian times.”—Vladimir Tismaneanu, International Affairs
Review
“David Satter has written a classic of its kind, investigating the psychological reactions that modern Russians feel towards the crimes of their Communist forebears.”—Andrew Roberts, The American Spectator
Review
“Compelling, a journalist’s book.”—Choice Andrew Roberts - The American Spectator
Review
"Rich in detail and enthused by civil passion, It Was A Long Time Ago contains many precise, moving and original observations."—Alexander Etkind, Times Literary Supplement
Review
"E.H. Carr made the point that, to understand how history gets written, one first has to understand who the historian is and the age in which they are writing. I was reminded of this warning when reading Satter's fascinating study of how Russia has, since 2000, been trying to construct its own particular version of the past that directly serves Vladimir Putin's purposes - with the obvious caveat that they are not dealing with a sole historian but a whole state apparatus - Professor Michael Cox, BBC History Magazine
Choice
Review
and#8220;The three remarkable women in this book wrestled with some of the most compelling questions in the history of American reform movements. What was the best way to achieve social justice? Was economic inequality more important than sexism or racism? Slutskyand#8217;s original, nuanced book explains how these women discovered uniquely American answers to these questions.and#8221;and#8212;Kathy Olmsted, author of Real Enemies, Red Spy Queen, and Challenging the Secret Government
Review
andldquo;[
Gendering Radicalism] combines the study of twentieth-century women, California, and andlsquo;radicalandrsquo; politics in a way that has not been done before. Very well written and informative.andrdquo;andmdash;Kathleen Cairns, author of
Proof of Guilt: Barbara Graham and the Politics of Executing Women in AmericaReview
andldquo;There have been books before on the history of the American Socialist Party, but none that I know of takes the story from the partyandrsquo;s roots in the late nineteenth century through its devolution after World War II into Michael Harringtonandrsquo;s Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee and the proto-conservative Social Democrats USA. Ross tries to answer the difficult question of why the American Socialists never became a major party, providing an important history not only of the American left but of the right as well.andrdquo;andmdash;John B. Judis, senior writer for theand#160;National Journal
Review
andldquo;Jack Ross has performed a prodigious and provocative feat of recovery and historical interpretation. In Rossandrsquo;s telling, the Socialist Party of America is not just a dreary dress rehearsal for Cold War liberalism or neoconservatism but rather, at its best, a living, breathing embodiment of populist American radicalism.andrdquo;andmdash;Bill Kauffman, author of Ainandrsquo;t My America: The Long, Noble History of Antiwar Conservatism and Middle-American Anti-Imperialism
Review
andldquo;Not only does Jack Ross cover the history of the [Socialist Party of America] and its leading adherents, he also offers an analysis of socialismandrsquo;s rise, decline, and persistence as a marginal movement in the United States that is more complete and original than that of any other scholars of the political left. . . . This history deserves the attention and respect of every reader.andrdquo;andmdash;Melvyn Dubofsky, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of history and sociology at Binghamton University, SUNY, and coauthor of John L. Lewis: A Biography
Synopsis
Anticipating a new dawn of freedom after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russians could hardly have foreseen the reality of their future a decade later: a country impoverished and controlled at every level by organized crime. This riveting book views the 1990s reform period through the experiences of individual citizens, revealing the changes that have swept Russia and their effect on Russias age-old ways of thinking.
The Russia that Satter depicts in this brave, engaging book cannot be ignored. Darkness at Dawn should be required reading for anyone interested in the post-Soviet state.”Christian Caryl, Newsweek
Satter must be commended for saying what a great many people only dare to think.”Matthew Brzezinski, Toronto Globe and Mail
Humane and articulate.”Raymond Asquith, Spectator
Vivid, impeccably researched and truly frightening. . . . Western policy-makers, especially in Washington, would do well to study these pages.”Martin Sieff, United Press International
Synopsis
For thirty years Ben Kiernan has been deeply involved in the study of genocide and crimes against humanity. He has played a key role in unearthing confidential documentation of the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge. His writings have transformed our understanding not only of twentieth-century Cambodia but also of the historical phenomenon of genocide. This new bookthe first global history of genocide and extermination from ancient timesis among his most important achievements.
Kiernan examines outbreaks of mass violence from the classical era to the present, focusing on worldwide colonial exterminations and twentieth-century case studies including the Armenian genocide, the Nazi Holocaust, Stalins mass murders, and the Cambodian and Rwandan genocides. He identifies connections, patterns, and features that in nearly every case gave early warning of the catastrophe to come: racism or religious prejudice, territorial expansionism, and cults of antiquity and agrarianism. The ideologies that have motivated perpetrators of mass killings in the past persist in our new century, says Kiernan. He urges that we heed the rich historical evidence with its telltale signs for predicting and preventing future genocides.
Synopsis
This stunning book, based on KGB archives that have never come to light before, provides the most complete account of Soviet espionage in America ever written. In 1993, former KGB officer Alexander Vassiliev was permitted unique access to Stalin-era records of Soviet intelligence operations against the United States. Years later, living in Britain, Vassiliev retrieved his extensive notebooks of transcribed documents from Moscow. With these notebooks John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr have meticulously constructed a new, sometimes shocking, historical account.
Along with general insights into espionage tactics and the motives of Americans who spied for Stalin, Spies resolves specific, long-seething controversies. The book confirms, among many other things, that Alger Hiss cooperated with Soviet intelligence over a long period of years, that journalist I. F. Stone worked on behalf of the KGB in the 1930s, and that Robert Oppenheimer was never recruited by Soviet intelligence. Spies also uncovers numerous American spies who were never even under suspicion and satisfyingly identifies the last unaccounted for American nuclear spies. Vassiliev tells the story of the notebooks and his own extraordinary life in a gripping introduction to the volume.
Synopsis
Former U.S. ambassador to the USSR Jack F. Matlock refutes the enduring idea that the United States forced the collapse of the Soviet Union by applying military and economic pressurewith wide-ranging implications for U.S. foreign policy. Matlock argues that Gorbachev, not Reagan, undermined Communist Party rule in the Soviet Union and that the Cold War ended in a negotiated settlement that benefited both sides. He posits that the end of the Cold War diminished rather than enhanced American power; with the removal of the Soviet threat, allies were less willing to accept American protection and leadership that seemed increasingly to ignore their interests.
Matlock shows how, during the Clinton and particularly the Bush-Cheney administrations, the belief that the United States had defeated the Soviet Union led to a conviction that it did not need allies, international organizations, or diplomacy, but could dominate and change the world by using its military power unilaterally. The result is a weakened America that has compromised its ability to lead. Matlock makes a passionate plea for the United States under Obama to reenvision its foreign policy and gives examples of how the new administration can reorient the U.S. approach to critical issues, taking advantage of lessons we should have learned from our experience in ending the Cold War.
Synopsis
'The phrase “Cold War” was coined by George Orwell in 1945 to describe the impact of the atomic bomb on world politics: “We may be heading not for a general breakdown but for an epoch as horribly stable as the slave empires of antiquity.” The Soviet Union, he wrote, was “at once unconquerable and in a permanent state of ‘cold war with its neighbors.” But as a leading historian of Soviet foreign policy, Jonathan Haslam, makes clear in this groundbreaking book, the epoch was anything but stable, with constant wars, near-wars, and political upheavals on both sides.
Whereas the Western perspective on the Cold War has been well documented by journalists and historians, the Soviet side has remained for the most part shrouded in secrecyuntil now. Drawing on a vast range of recently released archives in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, and Eastern Europe, Russias Cold War offers a thorough and fascinating analysis of East-West relations from 1917 to 1989.
Far more than merely a straightforward history of the Cold War, this book presents the first account of politics and decision making at the highest levels of Soviet power: how Soviet leaders saw political and military events, what they were trying to accomplish, their miscalculations, and the ways they took advantage of Western ignorance. Russias Cold War fills a significant gap in our understanding of the most important geopolitical rivalry of the twentieth century.'
Synopsis
A veteran writer on Russia and the Soviet Union explains why Russia refuses to draw the lessons of its past and what this portends for the future
Synopsis
Russia today is haunted by deeds that have not been examined and words that have been left unsaid. A serious attempt to understand the meaning of the Communist experience has not been undertaken, and millions of victims of Soviet Communism are all but forgotten. In this book David Satter, a former Moscow correspondent and longtime writer on Russia and the Soviet Union, presents a striking new interpretation of Russia's great historical tragedy, locating its source in Russia's failure fully to appreciate the value of the individual in comparison with the objectives of the state.
Satter explores the moral and spiritual crisis of Russian society. He shows how it is possible for a government to deny the inherent value of its citizens and for the population to agree, and why so many Russians actually mourn the passing of the Soviet regime that denied them fundamental rights. Through a wide-ranging consideration of attitudes toward the living and the dead, the past and the present, the state and the individual, Satter arrives at a distinctive and important new way of understanding the Russian experience.
Synopsis
This compelling and original book explores why Russia has ignored the lessons of its tragic Communist experience and shows how a deep-rooted lack of respect for the individual blocks the nation's way to a stable and democratic future.
Synopsis
At a time when the word and#8220;socialistand#8221; is but one of numerous political epithets that are generally divorced from the historical context of Americaand#8217;s political history, The Socialist Party of America presents a new, mature understanding of Americaand#8217;s most important minor political party of the twentieth century. From the partyand#8217;s origins in the labor and populist movements at the end of the nineteenth century, to its heyday with the charismatic Eugene V. Debs, and to its persistence through the Depression and the Second World War under the steady leadership of and#8220;Americaand#8217;s conscience,and#8221; Norman Thomas, The Socialist Party of America guides readers through the partyand#8217;s twilight, ultimate demise, and the successor groups that arose following its collapse.
Based on archival research, Jack Rossand#8217;s study challenges the orthodoxies of both sides of the historiographical debate as well as assumptions about the Socialist Party in historical memory. Ross similarly covers the related emergence of neoconservatism and other facets of contemporary American politics and assesses some of the more sensational charges from the right about contemporary liberalism and the and#8220;radicalismand#8221; of Barack Obama.
About the Author
Ben Kiernan is the A. Whitney Griswold Professor of History, professor of international and area studies, and the founding director of the Genocide Studies Program at Yale University (www.yale.edu/gsp). His previous books include How Pol Pot Came to Power: Colonialism, Nationalism, and Communism in Cambodia, 19301975 and The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-1979, published by Yale University Press.