We should not have needed the likes of Robert Conquest to describe and awaken us to the horrors of the Soviet Union. We should not have needed him to tell us that Joseph Stalin was a monster. We should not have needed him to tell us that the monstrousness of Stalin was the direct and …
Vladimir Putin’s Dangerous Thoughts
The president of Russia happens to think that the Nazi-Soviet pact of 1939 was not so bad, and possibly, fine and dandy. Of course, it ought to go without saying that he could not be more wrong in this assessment: 2014 will be remembered as a year in which Eastern Europe suffered one of its …
Quote of the Day
[George] Kennan was right to think he had an artist’s temperament at war with a foreign service officer’s ambition. He was twenty-six years in the service of the United States in Riga, Vienna, Prague, Lisbon, and Moscow, where he set up the first US embassy when US–Soviet diplomatic relations were established in 1933. He was in …
More on Pete Seeger
Presumably, we are meant to think well of someone who left behind this legacy: Along with countless other sensible people, I have often bristled at the mindless deification of Pete Seeger, the nonagenarian folk singer who died yesterday at age 94. I have no doubt that Seeger was a lovely man (a mutual friend, who became …
In Memoriam: Pete Seeger
His legacy was summed up nicely nearly seven years ago by Ronald Radosh: Today, Jim Brown's new documentary, "Pete Seeger: The Power of Song," opens the annual American Film Institute/Discovery Channel Silverdocs Festival near Washington, D.C. Two years ago, Mr. Brown asked to interview me for the film. I was a former student and friend …
