tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61043750659907227062012-02-11T12:49:04.520-08:00Motto: "I read bad books so you won't need to." The blog contains my reviews of books, mostly on foreign policy, history and national security.Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.comBlogger641100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-47845982660905200712012-01-27T20:37:00.000-08:002012-01-27T20:37:59.398-08:00

Russian blogosphere is mostly divided between two camps and the Russian Government is not in any of them. One camp is Stalinist with a heavy degree of antisemitism. The other camp are the "demchiza" people who demand immediate occupation of Russia by the NATO forces and the like. Imagine how popular they might be with simple people in the street. Seems that the Russian bloggers are locked in the

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-89721650153639309442012-01-18T19:34:00.000-08:002012-02-11T12:49:04.530-08:00

This comment of mine has not posted on your Dec. 18, 2011 blog for unknown reasons despite compliance with the Terms of Service, so I try to post it, belatedly, Dear Fareed Zakaria, You mention that "Historians have pointed out that the Russian nation was literally the property of the Czar, that serfs were more like slaves than simply peasant workers..." For your information, Russian Empire

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-69469177794204617362012-01-14T20:04:00.000-08:002012-01-14T20:10:05.325-08:00

Lies and obfuscations In her memoirs, Condolezza Rice glosses over at least four glaring failures of her as a national security adviser and secretary of state. First, is of course, the failure to observe the rise of Taliban and the danger Al Qaeda presented to the United States. She writes: "Yes, everyone knew that bin Laden was determined to attack the United States... We were not told how he

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-27764479755646260522011-12-29T17:49:00.000-08:002012-01-01T17:42:49.890-08:00

As usual with products of the Jesuit tutoring, O'Hear puts his deeply incisive account into the service of unrestrained Catholic propaganda and Victorian social values. According to him there is natural and immutable hierarchical order in society as well as in arts. Even more acute example of this proselytizing can be found in (Brother?) Vaccaro's commentary to an excellent but very strange in

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-39283948218331004192011-12-29T17:38:00.000-08:002012-01-11T21:56:55.538-08:00

Scabrous description of sex exploitation and, sometimes, rape, of the Asian women by the Western men presented as exotic adventure.

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-23139362358744874722011-09-25T10:13:00.000-07:002011-09-25T10:13:23.288-07:00

"This is worse than crime, this is an error", once said Prince De Talleyrand. Putin's decision to run for the next President of Russia goes into that category. For the time, I expected that the Tandem (Medvedev and Putin) will obfuscate the issue but closer to the election jointly support a third candidacy, for instance, the Minister for Regional Policies Kozak. Feelers from Moscow were also to a

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-71274184134985105182011-09-12T16:50:00.000-07:002011-09-17T05:47:29.669-07:00

Margaret McMillan's book is a propaganda rag in support of neocon policies of redrawing the map of the world with the superior US air power. As is usual with neocons, who, not altogether without foundation, disdain the ability of recipients of their agitprop to think, the purpose of the book is revealed in the preface by late Richard Holbrooke, the preeminent and the most successful practitioner

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-72518798601138097162011-08-31T21:12:00.000-07:002011-08-31T21:12:40.680-07:00

The book is a rationalization of Scalia's behavior and his alleged "legal theories." The lackadaisical author fondly writes about his background and formative events in Italian America. But there is nothing to rationalize or explain. He is a power-drank bigot, and that's all to it. Corruption by power is a story as old as the world itself. There is no logic behind his "legalistic" thinking; only

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-40385333521325407762011-07-24T10:29:00.000-07:002011-07-24T10:29:49.163-07:00

Not a bad biography but it is essentially an abridged and popularized version of Pflanze's three-volume study of the same persona, available in English. Steinberg emphasizes immense contradictions in his character: a militarist who never served the colors, etc. While many facts of the Bismarck's personal life are new, the analysis of his foreign policy is rather mundane and adds little to a

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-15894086202430604092011-06-07T12:56:00.000-07:002011-06-22T15:30:51.010-07:00

The title of the PhD dissertation (Psychology, SUNY Binghamton, 2011):               The Effects of Gonadectomy on Age- and Sex-Typical Responses to Novelty, Ethanol Intake                and Sensitivity in Sprague-Dawley Rats I still try to visualize possible displays of the above situation. None of them are pretty.

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-25872958311354660402011-03-20T16:46:00.000-07:002011-03-20T16:46:35.510-07:00

I take an issue with a number of contemporary writers who, while, discussing the phenomenon of the rising control of the of the American institutions and political process by the religious right refuse or are afraid to take the decisive step. They must recognize that what is called “Evangelical Christianity” in the US is not Christianity at all but a completely new religion. In fact, it has more

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-57722709716900062462010-10-14T21:03:00.000-07:002010-10-14T21:03:23.460-07:00

If you are a sad sack about New York City, unsporting, balding, with a growing tummy, the last billet in a dating scene office drone, who pays for his 1 bdrm. apartment shared with bedbugs and cockroaches a hefty sum, which will buy you a palatial mansion in rural Tennessee, banging against other sweaty bodies on subway in the wee hours of the morning, you probably dream of Neverland. The

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-72338009929644513722010-10-09T16:59:00.000-07:002010-10-09T16:59:56.990-07:00

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-49076121201144874952010-07-24T14:52:00.000-07:002010-07-24T14:59:04.633-07:00

Momus, a.k.a. Nick Currie is a multitalented artist--"polymath" they speak of scientists--who is being unfairly kept down by his own versatility. He is, of course, best known as a rock musician of no mean talent; I consider him a true heir to late/late John Lennon of "Strawberry Fields" and "Imagine" fame though this opinion is rarely shared. But he is also a musical critic, quite an accomplished

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-12844670780485715632010-07-14T10:57:00.000-07:002010-07-14T11:04:43.705-07:00

The author’s essay argues that, unlike the Russian Army, which has undergone substantive transformation since the beginning of reforms in late 1990s-early 2000s, the defense industry lagged or even reversed its reforms. Main impediments of redesigning ex-Soviet defense industry are far from financial. First, it is a location of major Soviet research and production centers in the labor-deficient

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-14314634001080865302010-07-13T14:08:00.000-07:002010-07-14T11:22:57.637-07:00

Abstract The author’s essay argues that, unlike the Russian Army, which has undergone substantive transformation since the beginning of reforms in late 1990s-early 2000s, the defense industry lagged or even reversed its reforms. Main impediments of redesigning ex-Soviet defense industry are far from financial. First, it is a location of major Soviet research and production centers in the

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-32119742201167372612010-07-10T21:54:00.000-07:002010-07-10T21:55:59.081-07:00

The Cambridge History of the Cold War is a thematically organized encyclopedia. As such, short but comprehensive history of the Cold War, which could be used as a reference source is long overdue. The problem with the encyclopedia is a highly variable level of articles, ranging from profound (D. Holloway), to the hackwork by the former Communist officials tailored to current DC intellectual

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-29937099060822589042010-05-31T21:12:00.000-07:002010-05-31T21:23:27.877-07:00

John W. Steinberg, All the Tsar’s Men: Russia’s General Staff and the Fate of the Empire, 1898-1914, Woodrow Wilson Center Press, Baltimore, ISBN 978-0-8018-9545-6. The new books are frequently advertised as “magisterial” or “definitive” studies but rarely appear as such after a few months in circulation. This fate, I am sure will not befell “All the Tsar’s Men.” Despite the shortcomings which

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-36375675840518689602010-01-12T21:15:00.000-08:002010-01-12T21:15:40.147-08:00

Unfair and semi-literate vituperation against the psychiatrists and their charges. On one hand, Scull demagogically accuses past greats such as Pinel, Charcot or Freud that they did not measure up to DSM-IV and neuropsychiatry of today. Yes, yes, and Napoleon was not so keen on aviation, and FDR did not develop Internet. On the other hand, his own identification of "insanity" and "madness" are

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-41905463363682733972009-12-17T22:01:00.000-08:002009-12-17T22:12:06.697-08:00

Machiavelli’s book is not only one of the most widely read but also one of the least understood. I read it after already knowing his "History of Florence"; eternal contrarian Kissinger recommends to read it alongside "Comments on Titus Livy." The message of the "Prince" does not seem to me as being cold, cynical and worldly; rather I imagine N. M. as rather sincere and impassioned man. Yet,

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-22333665534122084222009-12-17T21:31:00.000-08:002009-12-17T21:36:13.616-08:00

Nothing of course, is explained in the book of psychologist/antropologist Pascale Boyer, but it contains incisive analysis why religion emerged, persists and is likely to persist in human communities. The explanation will require attribution of specific religious experiences to the neurophysiology of the brain, the task, which is yet to be accomplished. Analysis of Pascale Boyer mentions that

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-69091218979061911532009-11-17T08:03:00.000-08:002009-11-21T12:42:51.965-08:00

I previously reviewed Azar Gat's "War in human civilization" (Feb. 2008). This is an important book and despite its neocon slant--in particular, the tendency to regard all social processes in fake biological terms--many of its arguments have intellectual validity. So my discussion with Gat continues. The Jewish people never had an instituion of nobility and did not have kingship for the past

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-38051986848046207912009-11-02T19:27:00.000-08:002009-11-02T19:57:06.950-08:00

Modern society nixes importance of philosophers and poets. Yet, in purely practical terms, without philosophers political discourse becomes incredibly shallow. And with poets reduced to drudgery in "liberal arts" colleges, the language of political debate becomes increasingly colorless and nasty. Politics is and always was a hyper-competitive business but for the observer of the Kennedy-Nixon

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-45747191706096927022009-08-12T17:58:00.000-07:002009-08-12T18:36:05.051-07:00

Precious few books live up to the laudatory reviews on its back cover. This is one of them. The author packed in its 84 pages pretty much everything there is to know about life in American academia. The only two omissions-- one being recognized by the author in the preface-- are peculiar to the fact that Steve Kahn's field is humanities. Hence, the grant writing and managing scientific

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-68525518990812826652009-07-04T17:11:00.000-07:002009-08-12T18:33:03.981-07:00

Abstract This irreverent essay explains why astrology persists in the modern world despite its verifiable absurdity. Астрография Успехи древней астрологии, которая в народном сознании далеко превзошла по значению современные астрономию и астрофизику—несмотря на протесты ряда известных ученых—не могут не радовать: в России наконец-то появился средний класс, наряду с олигархами, «

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-14524174900265291902009-06-12T11:53:00.000-07:002010-01-29T10:44:46.228-08:00

The most important thing about social change in contemporary, i.e. Imperial America or the New World Order, in my view does not concern its foreign policy. It is only tangentially connected with domestic policy. The main factor is cultural and the Empire USA propagates this change around the world with the efficiency of Coca Cola and Hollywood: the American icons of yesteryear. Modern world

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-89895185418552608372009-06-09T17:49:00.000-07:002009-06-10T13:33:57.189-07:00

Postmodernist account of the "Karakozov affair": the first, 1866 attempt on life of the Alexander II, the Liberator. The author correctly identifies the connection between the birth of the terrorism and modernity meaning the power of public opinion and the media as a major forces shaping society. As all postmodernist accounts it suffers from a total lack of humanistic empathy or even an

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-59940753753936964892009-05-16T18:49:00.000-07:002009-06-01T20:04:34.948-07:00

James O'Donnell produced absolutely uninspiring account pretending to be a "new history." Battles, alliances and political coups, to which the author attributes the Fall of the Roman Empire constitute a little more than embellished chronological table. Certainly, Roman administrators from time to time antagonized the settlers from outside the limes. The question why barbarian hordes, none of

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-47226034544932507012009-03-16T14:01:00.000-07:002009-08-12T18:37:35.104-07:00

Absolutely brilliant narrative so awash in grandiloquence as to lose much of its power (816 pages in all). After reading this book I am in much more confusion as to the reasons of its decline and fall than before I took it up.Read it though-- you will be amply rewarded.

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-66589456129949644102009-02-25T20:03:00.000-08:002009-03-16T13:59:26.650-07:00

I lived through at least three bubbles in the US: dot-com bubble, real estate and banking bubble and now this. All were heavily fueled by cocaine and other illegal stimulants. During the dot-com bubble, the sane people who dared to ask how companies which transacted no business and had neither profits nor assets could command market value in hundreds of millions and billions dollars were

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-2324216077333827932009-01-29T07:59:00.000-08:002009-01-29T08:22:07.760-08:00

Contemporary academic elite in the US is rather timorous bunch. If in the 1950s many professors resigned from California public universities rather than sign infamous “loyalty oath”— dismissed professors faced much more difficult perspective of finding jobs in McCarthyte America than they are now—these days academic dissent is but non-existent even when professional integrity is concerned. For

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-62101432231173591112009-01-10T17:41:00.000-08:002009-08-04T20:26:01.574-07:00

In Blairite Britain, writing an anti-Russian rag became a hallmark of a public intellectual. In 30-40s France to exist as a public intellectual one had to be either a Communist or a Nazi. In the 50-60s only a self-proclaimed leftist could be published or be appointed to an academic post in humanities though the approval of USSR's policies became outmoded and one had to to be anti-Soviet, Maoist

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-70609484294327456912009-01-03T11:39:00.000-08:002010-03-11T14:34:53.886-08:00

These works of fiction cannot be understood without the Bacchanal into which Blairite "Cool Britannia" has proliferated. Racial paranoia--with Russians in hell, Israelis in Limbo and EU in Purgatorio-- in the Blair's Britain is a logical answer to the Londonistan. To symbolically redeem the balkanization of the English society, intellectuals needed to invent and exorcize a bogeyman. Not that

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-27306857848967219972008-12-02T16:21:00.000-08:002008-12-29T19:13:30.698-08:00

Niall Ferguson, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World, Penguin, 2008Highly placed American academics are hardly a brave crowd. If in Visconti's "The Damned" it was Hitler's ascent to power, which prompted the head of the industrialists' clan to search for the corporate heir agreeable to the regime, Harvard mandarins were needed only a Bush to read a writing on the wall and appoint

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-86321616356987303832008-11-06T11:51:00.000-08:002008-11-16T13:49:28.481-08:00

Impenetrability of Hungarian language makes it nearly impossible for the outsider to study the 1956 revolution objectively. The book by Lendvai is quite interesting but I cannot understand how accurate it is. Largest contribution of his study seems to be his nuanced assessment of Janoscz Kadar, a leader installed by the Soviets during the coup. First, unlike most other emigre studies, Lendvai

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-6033995408529744022008-09-03T11:23:00.000-07:002008-11-16T13:50:37.632-08:00

Let me state that my provocative title does not mean that democratic form of government cannot exist in a country with the Muslim majority. What I point out is that what is called "democracy" by the dictionaries can only exist in the Western paradigm of the "nation-state," which started to emerge in the Early Modern Europe. Namely, the nation-state, an outgrowth of the national monarchy, is the

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-50815529587163901692008-06-16T19:54:00.000-07:002009-02-25T20:01:41.413-08:00

Fareed Zakaria, The post-American World, 2008, CB 161.Z34 In his book, Fareed Zakaria, one of the remaining intellectually sound members of US international relations elite, explains why the United States will retain global hegemony in the world, which seem to reject US hegemony while trying to imitate American practices and institutions. His argument is based on the fact that the US still

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-51808232048241812552008-04-18T12:05:00.000-07:002008-08-05T12:41:35.331-07:00

Sonke, Neitzel. Tapping Hitler's Generals, transcripts of secret conversations, 1942-1945. Translated by G. Brooks, Introduction by I. Kershaw. Frontline Books, MBI Publishing, St. Paul, 2007.The myth of the Wehrmacht non-involvement in Nazi brutalities was started to beinvented long before the end of the war. The transcripts show that the generals were very well informed about mass executions of

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-48707696500723102112008-04-18T11:57:00.000-07:002008-06-27T22:26:30.292-07:00

Uri Bar-Noi, The Cold War and Soviet Mistrust of Churchill's Pursuit of Detente.DA47.65.B37 2008, Sussex Academic Press, BrightonThe book's title and introduction belie its own thoroughly researched story,namely, that the post-War Britain was in no position to act as interlocutor between the USSR and the USA. Furthermore, the British elite did not share Churchill's attempts at Realpolitik.My

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-25640820825137766322008-04-18T11:53:00.000-07:002009-06-18T11:21:29.772-07:00

Pascal Marchand, Géopolitique de la Russie, Ellipses, 2008. ISBN 978-2-7298-3258-2 Jeffrey Minkoff, Russian Foreign Policy, Council of Foreign Relations Book, Rouman & Littlefill Publishers, 2009 Trivial, one-sided and, as always, arrogant account of the Russian politics and economics. Most of his, as everyone’s, stories of Russia’s decay in the 90s are based on comparison with the

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-84506891516037343302008-02-06T10:09:00.000-08:002008-02-06T10:15:05.175-08:00

Azar Gat, War in Human Civilization, Oxford University Press, 2006ISBN-13: 978-0199262137The book is long (800+ pages) and contains a lot of extremely interesting material, primarily about ancient warfare. I would recommend it as a useful substitute to J. Keegan book (John Keegan, “A History of Warfare”), which in a fashion, typical of English social sciences, mixes brilliant writing with

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-40913961967789321632008-01-25T11:11:00.000-08:002008-01-25T11:22:00.404-08:00

Ответ русскому другу: «Почему так трудно дается реформа российской науки?»А. С. Блиох I. «Раздавите гадину!»Écrasez l’infâme. Voltaire Самыми живучими советскими институтами оказались не КПСС и не КГБ, а колхозы, Союз Писателей и Академия Наук. Первые два учреждения не пережили великий и могучий; вторая пара тихо сгнила в девяностые, а Академия победоносно продолжает жить. Россия унаследовала

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-9126909440876525492008-01-19T14:01:00.000-08:002008-01-19T14:10:35.621-08:00

Tom Segev. 1967: Israel, the War and the Year which transformed the Middle East, Metropolitan, New YorkISBN-10: 0805070575 The description of the historical events of 1967 much more personable and politically sensible, yet less coherent than rather vengeful and score-settling Orem’s book.

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-10751293522574855602008-01-19T13:59:00.000-08:002008-01-23T11:28:35.373-08:00

Richard Sakwa. Putin. Russia’s Choice (Second Edition). Routledge, London, 2007. DK 510.763.S247 2007ISBN 978-0-203-40766-3Richard Sakwa needed to exculpate his sin (stating, with many caveats and excuses, that something positive can be possible in Russia), so he produced second edition of his book, re-written in extremely disdainful and haughty manner. He also purged the second edition of some

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-10295792216373223892008-01-16T10:03:00.000-08:002008-01-16T10:05:01.708-08:00

Joseph Cirincione, Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons, Columbia University Press, 2007ISBN-10 0-231-13510-6Cirincione presents uninspired, pedestrian account of issues. However, it is reasonably short, accurate and comprehensive. So if your purpose is to have quick-n’ dirty grasp of the subject of nuclear weapons, proliferation and disarmament, this is your book. But do not

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-23068510732565487132008-01-12T21:17:00.000-08:002008-01-12T21:18:07.367-08:00

Daniel Lord Smail. Deep History and the Brain. ISBN-10 0520252896Disjointed bauble of an aristocratic degenerate—in the medical sense I mean, of his private morals I know nothing—whose thought wanders through a schizophrenic haze with apparent erudition but no particular direction. Harvard, where he is Professor of History, obviously has some affirmative action program for well-bred and mentally

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-62977077710225970182008-01-04T15:17:00.000-08:002008-01-04T15:53:06.743-08:00

Andrew Hussey, Paris: The Secret History, Bloomsbury, 2007ISBN-13 978-1-59691-323-3 One can easily recommend some book because of its solid judgment and few errors. It is another matter altogether to be fascinated by the book despite its obvious failings. And this book is fascinating indeed. This is a popular history of Paris as a living being, mostly chronological, but unsystematic and anecdotal

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-36266974405190527142007-12-26T19:29:00.000-08:002007-12-26T19:32:46.854-08:00

Keylor, W. R., The Twentieth-Century World: An International History, OxfordUniversity Press, 2003, ISBN-10: 0195168437 (paperback, 2005) If you are a student who needs to cram the history of international relations in the XX century in a single night before the test, this is the book you need. Judging by its 5th edition, this is the opinion of many. It is cursory, but accurate. Moreover, unlike

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-31011442418449826762007-12-17T18:50:00.001-08:002008-02-08T12:54:55.642-08:00

Max Boot, War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History: 1500 to Today, Gotham, ISBN-10 1592402224This is Ramsfeldianism writ large. Almost all correct observations are lifted from J. F. C. Fuller, a Nazi sympathizer, who was also a very intelligent and well-educated observer (why all plagiarists chose either well-known or second-rate works is a mystery to me). Sometimes, he

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-2291366789154499682007-11-29T11:12:00.000-08:002008-01-31T12:05:46.393-08:00

Response to an English friend on the question: “What is Putin up to now?” The letter composed in Nov. 2007 US State Department at any given time has only one template for installing pliable governments, a.k.a. puppets. Between 1910s and 1970s this template was to pay the generals to change the government of some Latin American or Asian country they decided to bless in this way. If you want to

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-63269174201458915332007-11-21T22:14:00.000-08:002007-11-21T22:18:38.753-08:00

ISBN-13: 978-0-275-99190-6 Author asserts that military organizations are intrinsically conservative and process- rather than results-oriented and that all innovation comes from “military mavericks” acting on suggestions from academic pundits. Very well may be, but is unrestrained innovation always positive? Speer’s tenure at the Nazi Ministry of Armaments, Ogarkov-Ustinov tandem in USSR between

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-66281017477225516732007-11-15T12:17:00.000-08:002007-11-15T12:18:52.235-08:00

This is the only English-language analysis of the US-China relations in connection with the Chinese internal politics, which is not written in “anthropomorphic” terms—states as actors with coherent character and traits, personified by their leaders—typical for Anglo-Saxon political science. Her analysis is very interesting but proposals are pedestrian and do not go much beyond lecturing Chinese

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-62204869128578118082007-11-02T09:47:00.000-07:002007-11-02T09:51:57.911-07:00

When the firemen become too numerous, they take to arson. Oriental proverb When we created a $50 bn. plus a year, 200,000-staff monster called Department of Internal Security, it was clear to everybody who has any understanding how bureaucracy works that they would work tirelessly to expand their sphere of competence. One of the well-treaded methods is to circulate sensational new threat, usually

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-44991144856753843912007-10-11T13:24:00.000-07:002007-10-11T13:29:04.437-07:00

W. Langewiesche, The atomic bazaar: the rise of atomic poor, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2007, ISBN 0-374-10678-2 Throughout the 90s, “The New York Times” and WSJ entertained their readers by stories that in Russia one can buy nuclear bombs on the flea markets and that generally, the Russians are the source of all evil on this planet. By the new millennium the readers of respectable newspapers

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-22922183300530599132007-10-11T13:18:00.000-07:002008-07-13T10:53:55.377-07:00

Victoria Finlay, Jewels: A Secret History, Ballantine Books, NY 2006. ISBN-10: 0-345-46694-2 Amusing travelogue. Wittily organized according to Mohs hardness scale of jewels (which are not necessarily minerals: amber, pearl, jet and opal all involve organic processes in their formation). Discussion of artificial corundum gemstones— ruby, sapphire— is outdated and superficial: the requirements of

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-39201083211553607632007-10-11T13:13:00.000-07:002008-07-13T10:56:09.953-07:00

William Butcher, Jules Verne. The Definitive Biography. Thunder’s mouth press, NY 2006 ISBN-10: 1-56025-854-3The author calls it “a definitive biography.” There is nothing definitive in it, except for meticulous reconstruction of Verne’s home addresses throughout his life, financial affairs—containing unfounded allegations of Hetzel of cheating the author—, and lugubrious allegations of Verne’s

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-48776659790319330872007-08-24T16:24:00.000-07:002007-08-24T16:27:57.952-07:00

Josef Joffe, Überpower: The Imperial Temptation of America. W. W. Norton, NY, ISBN-10: 0393330141Josef Joffe is a pro-American German conservative, so when American media wants to have an opinion on German affairs, he is “Germany.” For instance, before the election of Social Democratic majority in 1998 and subsequent re-election, which were obvious from all opinion polls, American media discussed

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-78719747095904586922007-06-22T11:22:00.000-07:002007-06-22T11:28:56.408-07:00

Control over the weapons in outer space “…Your editorial is mostly an opinion, not a well-demonstrated case study… The US is not the only one contemplating such a move [i.e. the offensive weapons in space—A. B.]. Our military and society now depend on satellites, and we can ill afford a “space Pearl Harbor.” Finally, monitoring any satellite militarization is extremely difficult.” From the

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-9699869953824855862007-05-27T20:15:00.000-07:002008-07-13T11:11:59.997-07:00

Moshe Lewin, The Soviet Century, Verso, London, 2005ISBN-10: 1-84467-016-3Very nuanced, but totally wrong-headed book on the Soviet system of Government. In particular, the author for the first time uses the numerical data on the size of CPSU apparatus and its cost from recently declassified archival sources. The description of society and government under Stalin is brilliant, but his general

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-2738757833148850042007-05-20T11:52:00.000-07:002007-06-15T14:46:23.845-07:00

Civil warsAlex S. BliokhOnce walking through the halls of Los Alamos I noticed a photograph which was not known to me but which style and subject was painstakingly familiar to me through school textbooks and onwards: Russian Civil War. However, coming closer I spotted some differences in uniform and read the title indicating that these were Carranzistas in Revolutionary Mexico. This was a good

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-66257339708513895792007-05-19T11:27:00.001-07:002008-06-29T12:23:28.450-07:00

Neff, S. C., War and the Law of Nations: A General History. Cambridge University Press, 2005ISBN-10: 0-521-66205-2Neff’s book contains a lot of useful material on legal theories concerning wars and accompanying legal issues (neutrality, reprisals and other sub-war actions and the status of civilians). It also provides sensible discussion of the definition of war and its distinctions from other

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-75681225157511134402007-05-15T21:24:00.000-07:002007-05-15T21:25:03.723-07:00

Loren J. Samons II. What’s Wrong With Democracy: From Athenian Practice to American Worship, University of California Press, 2002.ISBN-10: 0520236602Strauss-speak (from Leo Strauss), so thick that it is hardly comprehensible for a non-Straussian.

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-50663879622172549902007-05-15T21:23:00.000-07:002007-05-15T21:24:19.632-07:00

Wood, J. H., A History of Central Banking in Great Britain and the United States, Cambridge University Press, 2007.ISBN-10: 0521850134 The book contains a lot of interesting/useful material. However, it is written by the gold standard zealot, and clever insights rarely come from fanatics. Furthermore, there are many quotations in archaic language, which the author obviously enjoys but

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6104375065990722706.post-64425978469779917802007-05-15T16:38:00.000-07:002007-05-27T20:23:42.848-07:00

Brose, E. D. The Kaiser’s Army: The Politics of Military Technology during the Machine Age: 1870-1918, Oxford University Press, 2004.ISBN-10: 0195179455The book is especially interesting by its insights into decision-making in the German High Command on the eve of the First World War. It contributes to understanding of the factors, which led to the disastrous decisions of 1914 from the

Alex Bliokh (A. S. Bliokh)http://www.blogger.com/profile/10788807504054236627noreply@blogger.com0