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The night after I finished Down with Big Brother: The Fall of the Soviet Empire I dreamed about a star-crossed romance in which the protagonists could only be together if they successfully established a CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY. Which says something about how politics work in my extremely intellectual subconscious, I guess. (Spoiler: the history of the end of the cold war does not actually contain any star-crossed romances. Although I guess a dedicated RPF-er could write tragic Gorbachev/Yeltsin torn apart by their opposing views on the pace of reform if they really wanted. Actually you could write Gorbachev/pretty much anyone torn apart by their opposing views on the pace of reform, really, it wouldn't be hard.)
gramarye1971, who knows more about cold war history than I ever will, lent me this book as part of her efforts to help me in my resolve to read more nonfiction. As history, is a very good summary of the events leading up to the disintegration of the Soviet Union, starting from the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and going up through Yeltsin's election to president of the Russian federation in 1991; Michael Dobbs was a reporter in the area for much of this time and witnessed a number of the events.
Michael Dobbs also really earnestly believes that any sensible person must acknowledge that market capitalism is a fantastic system and the only possible healthy way for a nation-state to run itself - if he acknowledges any flaws in the model, it's nowhere in this book - so, you know, you have to take what he says with a grain of salt. He's pretty good at taking his own views out of the equation when he's writing up the historical events, though, well able to show the way different and apparently unrelated internal factors pile on each other to cause astounding events, and is decent the depicting the various politicians who comprised the 'evil empire' at the time he was reporting with intelligence and sympathy. I get the impression he sort of views Gorbachev as a Shakespearian tragic hero - and you know, now that I think of it, if you got this material to Shakespeare he probably could make quite a good history play. Though it would be somewhat lacking in meaty female roles. He'd probably have to insert some more Margaret Thatcher.
This entry is cross-posted at Livejournal from http://skygiants.dreamwidth.org/234731.html. Please feel free to comment here or there! There are currently
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gramarye1971, who knows more about cold war history than I ever will, lent me this book as part of her efforts to help me in my resolve to read more nonfiction. As history, is a very good summary of the events leading up to the disintegration of the Soviet Union, starting from the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and going up through Yeltsin's election to president of the Russian federation in 1991; Michael Dobbs was a reporter in the area for much of this time and witnessed a number of the events.
Michael Dobbs also really earnestly believes that any sensible person must acknowledge that market capitalism is a fantastic system and the only possible healthy way for a nation-state to run itself - if he acknowledges any flaws in the model, it's nowhere in this book - so, you know, you have to take what he says with a grain of salt. He's pretty good at taking his own views out of the equation when he's writing up the historical events, though, well able to show the way different and apparently unrelated internal factors pile on each other to cause astounding events, and is decent the depicting the various politicians who comprised the 'evil empire' at the time he was reporting with intelligence and sympathy. I get the impression he sort of views Gorbachev as a Shakespearian tragic hero - and you know, now that I think of it, if you got this material to Shakespeare he probably could make quite a good history play. Though it would be somewhat lacking in meaty female roles. He'd probably have to insert some more Margaret Thatcher.
This entry is cross-posted at Livejournal from http://skygiants.dreamwidth.org/234731.html. Please feel free to comment here or there! There are currently
comments on Dreamwidth.