Joseph Stieb (Author of The Regime Change Consensus)

Joseph Stieb made a comment on his review of Collisions: The Origins of the War in Ukraine and the New Global Instability " Haha I'll have to think about that! Haha I'll have to think about that! ...more "
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Joseph Stieb rated a book really liked it Inflection Point: Biden, Trump, and the Future World Order \| A Lowy Institute Paper: Penguin Special by Thomas Wright	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Jul 17, 2026 01:09PM · 1 like · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Inflection Point by Thomas Wright. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Inflection Point by Thomas Wright <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Joseph Stieb rated a book really liked it Collisions: The Origins of the War in Ukraine and the New Global Instability by Michael Kimmage	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
A helpful and balanced history of the origins of the Russo-Ukrainian War and what it means for world history. MK argues that the war is mainly a result of Russia's ambition to take back control of its traditional sphere of influence in Eastern Europe ...more
Jul 16, 2026 11:57AM · 3 likes · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Collisions by Michael Kimmage. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Collisions by Michael Kimmage <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Joseph Stieb rated a book it was amazing Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
A really unique and weird book that I think would reward additional study. It's one of those complex, challenging, post-modernish books that I wish I had read with a class or an expert guide. The basic story is this odd editor guy who is writing a so ...more
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Joseph Stieb rated a book it was amazing The Revolutionary Center: The Lost Genius of Liberalism by Adrian Wooldridge	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Enjoyed this a good deal..definitely my kind of liberalism, even though I'm probably somewhat to the left of AW. The book is quite grumpy, but I'm grumpy too, and AW has plenty of criticism to dole out to all kinds of liberals. He starts with a very ...more
Jul 12, 2026 12:41PM · 7 likes · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Revolutionary Center by Adrian Wooldridge. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Revolutionary Center by Adrian Wooldridge <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Joseph Stieb rated a book it was amazing Operation Wrath of God: The Secret History of European Intelligence and Mossad's Assassination Campaign by Aviva Guttmann	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This is an excellent and intensive study of Operation Wrath of God, the Israeli assassination program that followed the Munich Olympics attack in 1972. AG draws on the Club of Berne "Kilowatt" intellligence cables and reports, a huge and hitherto unt ...more
Jul 10, 2026 07:23AM · 7 likes · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Operation Wrath of God by Aviva Guttmann. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Operation Wrath of God by Aviva Guttmann <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Joseph Stieb and 1 other person liked Lachlan Finlayson's review of Operation Wrath of God: The Secret History of European Intelligence and Mossad's Assassination Campaign: "I am grateful to NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. This book immediately attracted my attention when I noticed it on NetGalley. I applaud the author, an academic at a British university, and others " Read more of this review »
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Joseph Stieb rated a book it was amazing One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps by Andrea Pitzer (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
An important if unbelievably depressing book about the wide usage of concentration/detention camps from the late 19th century to the present. Pitzer moves at a detailed but measured pace through a complex, world-spanning story with great skill, explo ...more
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Joseph Stieb rated a book really liked it Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This is my first Woolf novel, and it was interesting. She's an absolutely brilliant writer. The imagery, internal monologues, and reflections in this book are spectacular. The book is only about 200 pages, but the langauge is so rich and dense that y ...more
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Joseph Stieb and 1 other person liked Bradley Brincka's review of Why Postliberalism Failed: "This is a thorough and illuminating critique of the quixotic, Catholic integralist movement. Patterson and Howes demonstrate convincingly that that attempts at establishing Catholic confessional states in the 20th century were universally disastrous;" Read more of this review »
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Joseph Stieb made a comment on his review of Collisions: The Origins of the War in Ukraine and the New Global Instability

" Haha I'll have to think about that! ...more "

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Inflection Point: Biden, Trump, and the Future World Order | A Lowy Institute Paper: Penguin Special
by Thomas Wright

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Collisions: The Origins of the War in Ukraine and the New Global Instability
by Michael Kimmage

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A helpful and balanced history of the origins of the Russo-Ukrainian War and what it means for world history. MK argues that the war is mainly a result of Russia's ambition to take back control of its traditional sphere of influence in Eastern Europe A helpful and balanced history of the origins of the Russo-Ukrainian War and what it means for world history. MK argues that the war is mainly a result of Russia's ambition to take back control of its traditional sphere of influence in Eastern Europe and push back on the West's (NATO and the EU) eastward expansion in the post-Cold War world. Kimmage shows how Putin radicalized considerably in the 2010s, coming to believe that the United States was hell-bent on sparking a color-revolution on Russian soil, that it was a rogue hegemon, and that he had a nationalistic destiny to restore Russia to greatness. Without blaming the United States or NATO as some commentators have, MK shows that U.S. overreach in the post-Cold War world, and the somewhat haphazard expansion of NATO, both gave Putin enough evidence to think there was a plot against him while also not firmly committing the US to defend nations like Ukraine. A lot of this, he argues, is about European-US alliance politics in which European nations were determined to minimize the growing Russian threat (and the defense spending increases it would impel) and avoid having to break dependency on Russian gas. But I think MK does a good job showing how structural this war is, how it is a continuation of decades if not centuries of competition and uncertainty over Eastern Europe. He also shows that NATO expansion is not a US imperialist plot but something the nations of Eastern Europe passionately wanted (and for good reason).

MK also assesses the historical significance of this war. It might be the most important international conflict since Iraq, as it pits a large coalition of democracies against Russia, which has significant but less staunch backing from Iran, Russia, and China. It is driving global realignment on these lines while also bringing back old-school military conquest/territorial aggression. It is demonstrating how US domestic politics creates constant whiplash in our policy execution, putting more of the onus for combatting Russia on Europe. Finally, it shows the fading of the post-Cold War optimism about a more peaceful, integrated world, although at the same time it is a struggle to defend the principles/structures of liberal democracy, national self-determination, and international institutions
against revanchist nationalism. Probably more than the Gaza War, which is emotionally resonant but smaller and scale, the Ukraine War will have a decisive impact on world history this century.

However, this book does have a few problems. First, it's too long, and it spends too much time on background material and contextualization. It's obviously important to provide the larger context, but at times the book strayed pretty far afield from Eastern Europe, and if you know recent USFP history pretty well, you'll find yourself reviewing a lot of familiar material. Second, I would have liked to have heard more about Kimmage's experience at State Department's Policy Planning Office under Obama. I would have appreciated a little bit more memoir, in other words, to go along with the historical narrative.

Still, this is a solid book that gives a satisfactory historical account of the origins and significance of the Russo-Ukrainian War. ...more

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Pale Fire
by Vladimir Nabokov

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A really unique and weird book that I think would reward additional study. It's one of those complex, challenging, post-modernish books that I wish I had read with a class or an expert guide. The basic story is this odd editor guy who is writing a so ...more

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The Revolutionary Center by Adrian Wooldridge

The Revolutionary Center: The Lost Genius of Liberalism
by Adrian Wooldridge

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Enjoyed this a good deal..definitely my kind of liberalism, even though I'm probably somewhat to the left of AW. The book is quite grumpy, but I'm grumpy too, and AW has plenty of criticism to dole out to all kinds of liberals. He starts with a very Enjoyed this a good deal..definitely my kind of liberalism, even though I'm probably somewhat to the left of AW. The book is quite grumpy, but I'm grumpy too, and AW has plenty of criticism to dole out to all kinds of liberals. He starts with a very good history of Western liberalism, emphasizing that while the core of this tradition is the rights of the individual and the balancing of power (or skepticism of centralized power), those centrifugal tendencies of individualism need to be counter-balanced by leavening forces like sociability (think SCottish Enlightenment stuff), civic institutions (the "little platoons"), an a maturity about freedom in the sense that, as Niebuhr put it, freedom is rarely an end in itself but a means to other ends.

The second half of the book examines the crises of modern liberalism in an age of populist, nationalist backlash. I would say the arguments here are radically different than a lot of analyses of the travails of modern liberalism, but AW makes a solid if snarky case for the need for a return to liberal basics. He argues that liberalism today consists of 3 camps. Neoliberals are far too enamored of the marketplace and globalization, which has eroded the sense of common cause and responsibility and discipline that you need to hold a liberal society together. A liberal society cannot be just a bunch of utility-maximizers; there needs to be responsibility to go along with rights and prosperity. Left-liberals, he argues, have betrayed liberalism itself, moving in radical directions on a variety of issues, embracing identitarianism, and abandoning concepts like freedom of speech, high common standards, and an active US global role. Finally, managerial liberals are the establishment of today; they are dominant and complacent technocrats who run the Democratic Party, the EU, universities, media, etc. They lack vision and principle but do hoard opportunity and positions for themselves and their children, creating an elite that doesn't think of itself as an elite.

All 3 types of liberals, Woolridge contends, are increasingly living in their own bubbles and unwilling to understand their own roles in creating the current populist/nationalist backlash. Woolridge recommends a more centrist but vibrant liberals, one more attached to day-to-day realities and experiences outside of liberal centers of power, and one with a little less emphasis on the market and freedom choice as the sole goods and more emphasis on responsibility, nationhood, and so on.

I'm sympathetic to this argument as a dyed-in-the-wool liberal who thinks that liberals need to learn more from their own past (liberals don't have institutions that are specifically for liberalism to the extent that conservatives do, imo), get out of their bubbles, and question received wisdom. The main thing that annoyed me in the book was that AW sometimes drew false equivalences between the modern Left (which is nutty and doctrinaire but not terribly powerful) and the MAGA-ish right (which is extremely powerful and much larger threat to liberal democracy). Other than that, this is a solid book that pairs well with Adam Gopnik's more narrative "A Thousand Small Sanities." ...more

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Operation Wrath of God by Aviva Guttmann

Operation Wrath of God: The Secret History of European Intelligence and Mossad's Assassination Campaign
by Aviva Guttmann

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This is an excellent and intensive study of Operation Wrath of God, the Israeli assassination program that followed the Munich Olympics attack in 1972. AG draws on the Club of Berne "Kilowatt" intellligence cables and reports, a huge and hitherto unt This is an excellent and intensive study of Operation Wrath of God, the Israeli assassination program that followed the Munich Olympics attack in 1972. AG draws on the Club of Berne "Kilowatt" intellligence cables and reports, a huge and hitherto untapped set of documents to demonstrate how the WoG operation worked. The European intelligence agencies played a double game of criticizing Israeli assassinations in public while continuing intelligence sharing in private and tacitly tolerating Israeli operations, in large part because the Palestinian terrorist threat in Europe in the 1970s. This book shows that the BSO campaign was truly extensive; they had infiltrated and set up networks in dozens of European countries and were planning many more acts of terror and sabotage than they actually completed, including vile plans to strike a refugee camp of Soviet Jews in Austria who were on their way to Israel.

Did Operation WoG work? That's a tough question. AG argues that it didn't markedly move Israel toward peace, but that wasn't the point. The point was to strike back for Munich, to demonstrate MOssad's reach, and to break up the transnational BSO networks and structures that they used to carry out these attacks. Combined with operations like "Spring of Youth," an incursion into Lebanon that killed several top Fatah leaders, I'd say WoG was a considerable success that contributed to the BSO's decline and Arafat's decision at the end of 1973 to move away from "external operations," his term for international terrorist attacks. However, WoG became a victim of its own success in the "Lillehammer Affair," when sloppy intelligence work led to the assassination of an ordinary Moroccan man in Norway, leading to the suspension of the campaign and a diplomatic crisis in Europe. In sum, WoG only killed about ten people, which is fewer than I thought.

My only complaint about this book is that the writing is a little stiff, and there are some sentences that should have been smoothed out by an editor. Furthermore (ok, 2 complaints), AG sometimes over-explains her sources after the point has become quite clear to the reader. So while the book is very good, it does not flow in a narrative sense like Ronen Bergman's book about Israeli assassination programs (which is also excellent).

AG also deserves credit for her incredibly even handed treatment of a divisive topic. She explores ethical issues without preaching and shows that, in fact, the Israelis had a pretty rigorous process for deciding who to target. Of all the operatives killed in WoG, only one was an innocent man; all the others were heavily involved in terrorist planning and execution. In some cases, they were within days of carrying out attacks. AG seems more ethically concerned about these operations than I am; to me, this kind of precision targeting is critical to counterterrorism in general and largely justified. Still, hyper-partisans of either the Israeli or Palestinian side will find that this is not an axe-grinding book but a truly impartial and informed study that sets the record straight about one of the most famous campaigns in counterterrorism history. If you research international terrorism or are interested in the global dimensions of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, this is a great book to pick up. ...more

Joseph Stieb and 1 other person liked Lachlan Finlayson's review of Operation Wrath of God: The Secret History of European Intelligence and Mossad's Assassination Campaign:

"I am grateful to NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

This book immediately attracted my attention when I noticed it on NetGalley. I applaud the author, an academic at a British university, and others " Read more of this review »

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One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps
by Andrea Pitzer (Goodreads Author)

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An important if unbelievably depressing book about the wide usage of concentration/detention camps from the late 19th century to the present. Pitzer moves at a detailed but measured pace through a complex, world-spanning story with great skill, explo An important if unbelievably depressing book about the wide usage of concentration/detention camps from the late 19th century to the present. Pitzer moves at a detailed but measured pace through a complex, world-spanning story with great skill, exploring both larger historical trends and personal narratives. Pitzer defines a concentration camp as any place where people are detained in an extra-judicial limbo, usually because they are a member of a certain detested group or seen as dangerous/in need of being controlled, rather than the normal penal system of conviction and incarceration. They often exist "off the books," in spaces that are outside normal checks, balances, and scrutiny, making them inherently dangerous.

Pitzer argues that concentration camps arose in the late 19th century largely as means to put down rebellions/insurgencies (Philippines, Cuba, South Africa). Most of these were less "camps" in the gulag or Nazi camp image but zones, often towns, in which large numbers of people were compelled to live so that counterinsurgents could go after the rebels. But these zones didn't come with adequate sanitation or food, so they became death factories for the people forced into them, even if they were often fairly successful as a means of defeating insurgents.

Pitzer then shows that as modern states expanded their administrative powers in the early-mid 20th century (as well as their ideological ambitions), concentration camps and other forms of mass detention became even more common. There was a great chapter on de facto concentration camps for foreign nationals in Britain, France, Germany, and elsewhere in World War I that was extensive, but that I was largely unaware of. The book then moves into exploration of what might be called the peak of concentration-ism in Nazi Germany and the USSR, but Pitzer also shows that the Nazis and Soviets were the extreme of a trend that almost every society embraced at some point (Japanese concentration in the US, the British in Kenya, Maoist China with its own gulag, etc). In fact, Pitzer makes the very keen point that many victims of the Holocaust may have gone along with ghetto-ization and then camp detention in part because wartime detention was seen as relatively normal at the time and not something destined to end in extermination.

Camps varied in their intent and lethality, but the idea of concentrating and controlling large numbers of human beings outside of legal process did not die with the Third Reich. The last third of the book looks at how camp systems adapted to the post-World War II world and the increasing scrutiny of a globalized media. The South American dictatorships of the 70s and 80s, for example, used camps in a more mobile, often temporary and targeted way to detain, torture, and crush leftist opposition. They built up more deniability and furtiveness around what they were doing, but they were nonetheless engaging in concentration. Pitzer ends with a discussion of Guantanamo Bay as a zone placed beyond normal legal constraints (at least for a time) during war time to deal with "the worst of the worst," even though tons of people initially placed at Gitmo were not high-level terrorists and U.S. torture of those suspects rendered them un-prosecutable.

Pitzer deserves immense credit for telling this wide-ranging and important story. This is quite simply a bad idea that societies nonetheless keep returning to, and not just autocracies like China and the Uighers. The book reinforces the common-ness of concentration camps without engaging in false equivalence between, say, Dachau and Gitmo. But the larger point of the book is that you don't even want to start down this road; wherever possible, you want to keep detention within legal channels and structures, both as a matter of practicality and of morality. ...more

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Mrs. Dalloway
by Virginia Woolf

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This is my first Woolf novel, and it was interesting. She's an absolutely brilliant writer. The imagery, internal monologues, and reflections in this book are spectacular. The book is only about 200 pages, but the langauge is so rich and dense that y ...more

Joseph Stieb and 1 other person liked Bradley Brincka's review of Why Postliberalism Failed:

Why Postliberalism Failed by James M Patterson

"This is a thorough and illuminating critique of the quixotic, Catholic integralist movement. Patterson and Howes demonstrate convincingly that that attempts at establishing Catholic confessional states in the 20th century were universally disastrous;" Read more of this review »

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