{"id":44889,"date":"2015-06-29T05:07:58","date_gmt":"2015-06-29T05:07:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=44889"},"modified":"2015-06-29T05:07:58","modified_gmt":"2015-06-29T05:07:58","slug":"two-mini-reviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=44889","title":{"rendered":"Two Mini Reviews"},"content":{"rendered":"

[by Mark Safranski<\/strong>, a.k.a. “zen<\/strong>“]<\/p>\n

I have a tremendous backlog of good books to review that I have read in recent months and I am facing the fact that it is dubious that I will ever to get to feature most of them here. \u00a0As a stopgap, I am going to try a few mini-reviews instead of the more noteworthy, or at least interesting, titles. Here are two:<\/p>\n

1. Stalin: Volume I Paradoxes of Power<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Stalin: Vol. 1: Paradoxes of Power 1878-1928<\/a> <\/strong>\u00a0by Stephen Kotkin<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Eminent diplomatic historian John Lewis Gaddis<\/a><\/strong> praises Princeton’s Stephen Kotkin<\/strong> for his new biography, calling it “A monumental achievement”. This is certainly correct. Kotkin has done more than break new ground with Stalin: Paradoxes of Power;<\/strong>\u00a0in my view it is arguably the best book on Joseph Stalin<\/a><\/strong> ever written.<\/p>\n

Admittedly this is high praise. It is true, that Kotkin is not in the same literary class as Simon Sebag Montefiore<\/a><\/strong>, who demonstrated his great prose skill with masterfully written and deeply researched biographies of Stalin, but Kotkin is always a clear, effective and always forceful writer. Where Kotkin excels is in the granularity of his biographical narrative, unearthing aspects of Stalin’s childhood and early revolutionary days, the intra-party rivalries with leading Bolshevik<\/a><\/strong> personalities, especially Stalin’s complicated relationship with Vladimir Lenin<\/a><\/strong> and Stalin’s skill as a politician and grand strategist. The narrative is accompanied with Kotkin’s piercing psychological analysis of Stalin’s criminal psychopathology emerging from a combination of complex rational political calculation and a bottomless well of narcissistic self-pity that ate away at Stalin’s soul.<\/p>\n

If volume 2 equals the first book, Kotkin will have written the definitive work of Stalin for years to come.<\/p>\n

II. Salinger<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Salinger<\/a><\/strong> by David Shields<\/a><\/strong> and Shane Salerno<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The book that accompanied the documentary of the same name, David Shields<\/strong> and Shane Salerno<\/strong> have put together a remarkable page turner that explains the mystifying author behind one of America’s most iconic literary works.<\/p>\n

“Don’t worry if all of the first wave of you are killed, We shall simply pass over your bodies with more and more men”\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

J.D. Salinger’s<\/strong> counterintelligence unit spearheaded the landing of the 4th Division on Utah Beach on D-Day<\/strong>, Salinger participated in five major battles in the European theater including the deadly Hurtgen Forest<\/strong> <\/a>where his regiment suffered 200% casualties and GI’s fighting in summer uniforms without blankets or winter coats froze to death in foxholes. A CIC<\/strong> <\/a>field interrogator, Salinger operated with great freedom and authority and after participating in the liberation of the concentration camp complex known to history as Dachau<\/a><\/strong>, he checked himself into a mental hospital. To paraphrase Shields and Salerno, J.D. Salinger carried six chapters of The Catcher in the Rye<\/a><\/em><\/strong> in to battle with him, a book that took him ten years to write and which he then regretted for the rest of his life.<\/span><\/p>\n

Salinger<\/em> the Documentary<\/strong><\/p>\n