The Rise and Fall of Soviet Communism
Finished 8/30/2023
This is a re-read for me. I first read it two years ago, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. I decided to read this again in light of the ongoing war. Read my first review for notes.
I disagree with the thesis of my prior review. Before, I disliked how anti-communist the narrator of the lecture series was. Today, I liked that facet. The lecturer of this was an American who lived through the Cold War, and had an anti-Communist perspective. On this re-read, I feel that even so the lecturer did a good job balancing the good with the bad about the soviets. He took a negative outlook on the soviets, because there was more bad than good.
This book does a good job focusing on the big picture of soviet politics. It starts with WW1 and Nikolas, then the narrative switches to Lenin, then Stalin, and after going through a few reformers it wraps things up with Gorbachev and Yeltzin. This book was written during Yeltzin’s government, so it doesn’t discuss putin. After reading this, I have a good idea of the events surrounding the major players in the Kremlin.
This did a bad job discussing daily life of the average soviet peasant. It does a bad job discussing world history: Russia in Afghanistan, the Vietnam/Korean Wars, the Cuban Missile Crisis, that sort of thing. I mentioned the Iron Curtain in my first review, but this fails to discuss the Iron Curtain or the Berlin Wall, or anything like that.
This did a great job discussing the foibles of communist ideology. The communists gained power through bloody revolt, and that colored everything which followed. You can make an argument that Stalin’s purges were a direct result of this violent will to power, something which might not have happened if they came to power peacefully.
The folly of the White Sea Canal were likewise discussed, to explain the folly of communist ideology. The White Sea Canal was meant to be like the Sinai Canal, a source of trade revenue. However, because the unofficial motto of the Communist Empire was ‘All Work is Good, even if it is inefficient and unproductive,’ the canal was too shallow for seafaring vessels. In the end, 25000 people died for no economic purpose. (It has since been upgraded to be useable, but the point still stands. Measure twice, cut once; the communists failed this bare-minimum aphorism.)
A Cabinet of Byzantine Curiosities
Finished 8/30/2023
Most nonfiction history books discuss the broad swath of history, tempering it with the occasional anecdote to add color to the tale. This is the exact opposite. This is all anecdotes. Every page of this book contains 3 to 5 different small factoids about the Byzantine Roman empire. Such as…
“When the people deposed Justinian II, they cut off his nose to disqualify him from the throne. Yet he returned from exile to rule again in 705. A later Western Source, Agnellus of Ravenna, says that he sported a golden prosthetic replacement.”
or…
“A lawyer had a child with a slave woman. His father advised him to kill it, whereupon the lawyer angrily replied, Why don’t you worry about killing your own kids, and let me worry about killing mine?”
The book contains page after page of these little details. They describe everyday life in the Empire. How women relate to men, and men women. Raising children. How people treat animals. How food is prepared. How the pipe organ was played at horse races. Medicine. Life as a Eunuch. Religion and insults. On and on it goes.
I had a great time reading this. At times, funny. At others, deeply sad. Too often history books lose the humanity when they discuss human history. This book is humanity, warts and all.
This book in no way stands on it’s own as a history book. But if you’ve already read a few Byzantine history books, I think this source would be invaluable for adding nuance to this most ideosyncratic of empires.
John Mendez- Book Reviews and More 