Chamberlin covers a roughly 50 year time period and several regions of the world to point out the violence of the Cold War. “Between the end of World War II and 1990 more than 20 million people died in violent conflicts. Broken down that means that an average of more than 1,200 people died in wars of one type or another everyday for 45 years. Most of them were civilians.”
Chamberlin covers the history of conflicts in Southeast Asia and the Middle East and states:
“This book argues that this violence was not simply an accidental consequence of local wars or super power meddling rather massacres such as My Lai were integral components of the Cold War world.”
The scope of this book is broad so only a superficial glance at each of the areas covered is given. However the book provides a valuable overview about the conflicts that occurred during the Cold War and the role the United States and the Communist Countries played. It pays little attention to uprisings like 1956 in Hungary and 1968 in Czechoslovakia against communist rule. It also is lacking in information on Cuba and South America.
The book will leave the reader with a greater understanding of the wars in Asia and the Middle East between 1945 and 1990.
Overall I rate it 4 out of 5 stars.
William Wilberforce has been called an agitator for his commitment to ending the slave trade. One of his well known speeches on the subject was given on May 12, 1789.
Cardinal Richelieu has been hailed as a great statesman and as a subversive authoritarian. Depending on who you talk to he was a man needed to strengthen the monarchy in France, or he was a tyrant seeking personal power. Next week I will have a book review that may shed more light on Cardinal Richelieu.
When Lenin was working on his major writing projects he would often pace across the room formulating the ideas that he would write down by saying them out loud. Once he had the idea for what he wanted to write he would often repeat the idea to Nadezhda Krupskaya, who would provide feedback. Once this process was complete he would then write the ideas down.
Here is an AI rendering of what that might have looked like when he was drafting What is to be Done.
This month this community will focus on political subversion. What is subversion? When is it justified? What is the interplay between subversion and agitation? These are some of the topics to be discussed this month.
“You get used to the despot’s shortcomings, when they are not great vices, and the change of an autocratic ruler leads to involuntary fear.”
Sergei Trubetskoi
