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Tag Archives: The Great Terror
“The behavior of any bureaucratic organization can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies.” –Robert Conquest
“I think once you accept that you have the answer to everything, you can do anything to bring it about because your enemies are trying to stop you, are enemies of reason, of truth of everything – enemies of the … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged England, nonfiction, politics, Robert Conquest, Russia, Sergei Kirov, Stalin, The Great Terror, war
3 Comments
Recommended Books: Non-Fiction
I have been meaning to do a Part 2 to my Recommended Books: Fiction list – put together years ago. I wanted to recommend non-fiction, from history books to biographies to essays to whatever. Here is the Non-Fiction list. I’ve … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Founding Fathers, Theatre
Tagged Abraham Lincoln, Afghanistan, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Alexander Hamilton, Austria, Balkan Ghosts, Balkans, baseball, Belfast, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, Catherine Drinker-Bowen, Central Asia, China, Crowds and Power, Dava Sobel, David McCullough, Edmund Burke, Edvard Radzinsky, Elias Canetti, Elvis Presley, England, Federalist Papers, Founding Brothers, France, Germany, Group Theatre, Gulag Archipelago, Hitler, Hunter S. Thompson, Imperium, Ireland, Iris Chang, Isaac Newton, James Madison, Janet Malcolm, Japan, Joseph Ellis, Michael Schmidt, Miracle at Philadelphia, nonfiction, Olivia Laing, Philip Gourevitch, poetry, Primo Levi, Rasputin, Rebecca West, Red Sox, Robert Conquest, Robert Kaplan, Roman empire, Russia, Rwanda, Ryszard Kapuściński, science, Serbia, Stalin, The Great Terror, The Soccer War, Tom Wolfe, true crime, Ukraine, Vincent Bugliosi, William Shakespeare, WWI, WWII, Yugoslavia
19 Comments
Everybody Breaks, Bro: Costa-Gavras’ The Confession
The fourth shot in Costa-Gavras’ excruciating film The Confession. If Robert Conquest explained the machinations behind the Soviet show trials in the 1930s in The Great Terror, and if, in Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler walked you through the the … Continue reading
Posted in Movies
Tagged Arthur Koestler, Costa-Gavras, Darkness at Noon, politics, Robert Conquest, The Great Terror
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2017 Books Read
I got into a good rhythm with reading this year. I did a lot of re-reading, going back to books I haven’t read in 20 years or whatever. It was fun, like a reunion with an old friend. Much of … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged 1984, A.S. Byatt, Bette Davis, books read, Camille Paglia, Christopher Hitchens, Edgar Allan Poe, England, France, George Orwell, Hannah Arendt, Herman Melville, Hitler, Ireland, Jack London, Janet Malcolm, Jean Renoir, Jeanette Winterson, Joan Crawford, Joan Didion, John Milton, Kim Stanley, Mark Danielewski, Mary Astor, Mary Gaitskill, Olivia Laing, Poland, politics, Robert Altman, Robert Conquest, Robert Kaplan, Russia, S.E. Hinton, Shirley Jackson, Tana French, Tennessee Williams, The Great Terror, war
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Bookshelf Tour #9
The books of Robert Conquest: first and foremost his masterpiece, one of the most important books of the 20th century: The Great Terror: A Reassessment, but also Reflections on a Ravaged Century, The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Afghanistan, Balkans, bookshelves, politics, Robert Conquest, Russia, The Great Terror, war
9 Comments
“I Told You So, You Fucking Fools”
or … that’s what Kingsley Amis reportedly told Robert Conquest should be the title of the new edition of The Great Terror: A Reassessment when it came out with updated information – information which basically not only vindicated Conquest (who … Continue reading
Today in History: Dec. 1, 1934
Josef Stalin and Sergei Kirov From: Stalin and the Kirov Murder, by Robert Conquest: This century has seen horrible crimes on a mass scale, culminating in the Jewish Holocaust. No comparison with these can be sustained. But as an individual … Continue reading
Posted in On This Day
Tagged politics, Robert Conquest, Russia, Sergei Kirov, Stalin, The Great Terror, war
3 Comments
The Books: “The Great Terror: A Reassessment” (Robert Conquest)
Next excerpt from my history bookshelf: Next book on the shelf is The Great Terror: A Reassessment, by Robert Conquest One of the most important non-fiction books of the 20th century. It was first published in 1968, and then was … Continue reading
2005 Books Read
Here is the complete list of books I read in 2005. Underworld: A Novel, by Don DeLillo – which I had started in the fall of 2004- before I went to Ireland – and it took me FOREVER to finish … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged American Sphinx, books read, Charming Billy, Children of the Arbat, Crowds and Power, Darkness at Noon, East of Eden, Edmund Burke, Harry Potter, L.M. Montgomery, Middlemarch, Miracle at Philadelphia, The Great Terror, The Pigman, Underworld, W.B. Yeats, Year of Magical Thinking
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Robert Conquest to Elias Canetti
Finished The Great Terror yesterday. Have they taken away Walter Duranty’s Pulitzer yet? You know who struck me as even more ridiculous than Duranty? The “Webbs” , Beatrice and Stanley Webb. They sat at those trials, and saw justice being … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Crowds and Power, Elias Canetti, politics, Robert Conquest, The Great Terror, war
2 Comments