C. Adam Volle > Recent Status Updates

This book remains highly enjoyable. I seem to have lucked out with my choice (which I made based on having read another book by Figes in 2016).

I love in-depth popular history. It’s great to feel like you’ve learned a lot and notice you’re not 1/10th done with the book.

I'll note at the outset that I'm not wildly pleased with the title, which suggests a typical anticommunist view of the event when I'm looking for even-handedness, or at least some amount of grace. That said, the good folk on r/AskHistorians recommend the book, and Richard Pipes's THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION is said to be more biased yet. I'll start here and maybe augment what I learn with additional reading later.

Like Klein’s first big success, NO LOGO, this book is an interesting and depressing time capsule. NO LOGO was published just before 9/11, THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING before Trump’s first election. In both cases, her diagnoses are on point, but her visions for a better future are now known to be wishful thinking.

I might have chosen this book at the wrong time. I’m having trouble paying full attention to details. But it’s a typically lucid argument from Klein.

We’re finally getting to the good stuff here.