Book Description
On September 5, 1945, cipher clerk Igor Gouzenko severed ties with the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa, reporting to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police allegations of extensive Soviet espionage in North America, providing stolen documents detailing Soviet intelligence matters to back his claims. This action sent shockwaves through Washington, London, Moscow, and Ottawa, changing the course of the twentieth century.
Using recently declassified FBI and Canadian RCMP files on the Gouzenko case, author and Cold War scholar Amy Knight sheds new light on the FBI’s efforts to incriminate Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White in order to discredit the Truman Administration. FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover seized upon Gouzenko’s defection as a means through which to demonize the Soviets, distorting statements made by Gouzenko to stir up “spy fever” in the U.S., setting the McCarthy era into motion. Through the FBI files and interviews with several key players, Knight delves into Gouzenko’s reasons for defecting and brilliantly connects these events to the strained relations between the Soviet Union and the West, marking the beginning of the Cold War.
Customer Reviews:
Half the story, but a well-written half.......2007-05-09
The book is a gripping account of espionage investigation and the political fallout from Igor Gouzenko's defection to Canada in September 1945. Knight argues that the Gouzenko case triggered a change of public perception of the Soviet Union, from that of a wartime ally to that of a deceitful enemy. This change of perception, and the political outrage in the West over Soviet espionage, precipitated anti-communist hysteria in the US and became the opening act of the drama of the Cold War.
Knight's analysis is certainly interesting, placing her clearly in the ranks of revisionist historians (those inclined to blame the US for the Cold War). Her research is very impressive; recently declassified Canadian materials are consulted at great length. On the other hand, the Russian side of the story is inadequately covered. Knight resorts here to a few articles or interviews by former Soviet intelligence officers, omitting archival evidence altogether.
Granted, as she quickly points out in the beginning, archival access in Russia remains problematic, and Gouzenko files at the GRU archive are certainly out of reach. But other archives (e.g. the Foreign Ministry, RGASPI) are more or less open to researchers, and Knight's omissions are regrettable.
As matters stand, only half Gouzenko's story is told in the book; the other - the Russian half - still remains to be written. Still, Gouzenko's life and times are examined in great detail. Knight shows something of an ambivalent feeling towards Gouzenko's personality, admiring him for courage but censuring him for egoism and arrogance.
The one important problem that is barely mentioned in the book is Stalin's policy in the early years of the Cold War. Only once does Knight offer her opinion about the underlying motivations of Soviet foreign policy - i.e. that Stalin wanted to cooperate with the West *before* Hiroshima - but this important observation is not buttressed by any evidence, except for a reference to the Zubok/Pleshakov book (Inside the Kremlin's Cold War).
And yet, Stalin's side of the story is exceptionally important, for if he ruled out cooperation with the West in the aftermath of Hiroshima, then did it really matter what Gouzenko did, or what Washington witch-hunters thought - the Cold War had already begun! The book's title is "How the Cold War began", but certainly without a greater examination of the Soviet side of the Cold War, we can never really tell how it all began. Nevertheless, it is an interesting book, well worth reading, well-written, full of insights and pertinent information.
Also, towards the end the author defends Alger Hiss (arguing that he was not a Soviet spy), though she does not really offer much evidence to undermine the well-known public prejudice to the contrary.
riveting, relevant and hard to put down..........2006-09-08
(had to enter this in "kid's review" as i don't want to sign up for an amazon account (sorry, amazon!)
Picked this up as it hit the store this week because of my fascination with the cold war era and the red scare. The case of Gouzenko, who defected in Canada, is riveting. I learned about his case in a history class, but had never read the details of this young man who decided to defect - setting off the most unbelievable chain of events. Knight's research is meticulous, and the case she builds about the lives ruined in the spy hunt makes this book a must for anyone who likes history and a good spy story. I finished it in two days, and it's still making me think....
Revisionism.......2006-07-31
I looked this book over at Borders and decided not to buy it when I saw that the author claims that the jury is still out on whether Alger Hiss was a Soviet spy. Frankly, it's my opinion that the Venona decrypts of KGB messages during the World War II era have pretty much settled this issue. Hiss was a spy and so were a number of other people that Ms. Knight seems to assert "reasonable doubt on."
Also, the assertion by her that the Gouzenko case marred amicable relations with the Soviet Union after World War II is ludicrous. To use Marxist terminology, that alliance collapsed of its own contradictions (democracies allied with expansionist totalitarian regime). Also, setting aside the Hiss and Harry Dexter White Cases, Venona indisputably proves that the Soviets were running an extremely aggressive intelligence collection program in the West of a scope and nature that is not normally associated with friendly intent.
So I would give this a pass, but if you have to read it, you should also check out a book called "the FBI-KGB War" by Robert Lamphere. Lamphere was an FBI agent deeply involved in many of the cases that this book discusses and in my opinion, he has a lot clearer view of reality than Ms. Knight.
Customer Reviews:
Wonderful foundation for the roots of the Civil War.......2005-06-15
A Nation Torn gives readers a solid background to the animosity between the North and the South. The text is interesting, the illustrations (often primary documents) capitivating, and the storyline illuminating. By giving details on the people involved, Ray helps readers understand the emotions driving the key players. As homeschoolers, we appreciated the sequential events. She did a particurally good job of tying in the importance of the Western Territories. Many of the illustrations are primary documents. My seven year old was blown away by the newpaper illustration depicting the caning of Senator Sumpter. The cruelty of slavery really hit home when we came to the picture of a slave whose back was scarred from whipping. Ray does a good job presenting a balanced view. She did a good job of making my son understand why Southerners believed in and justified the need for slaves. Unlike some books about this period, Southerns were not depicted as heartless. It is a well written book. Wonderful illustrations and high interest stories made this our favorite book for researching the story behind the Civil War. We checked it out of the library twice before we decided that this one was simply worth purchasing!
Book Description
How the Revolutionary War Began
The American colonists were fed up with British law. They refused to buy English goods. They formed a militia of tradesmen and farmers ready to fight at a moment’s notice. Most importantly, they joined together. All 13 colonies sent representatives to decide whether they should form a new country. That group wrote the Declaration of Independence, the document that summed up a revolution.
Customer Reviews:
Teacher Recommended.......2007-07-25
I bought this book to use with my 8th graders whose subject matter is US History. I read portions of it to them and created it into a great resource book. I would recommed this to other teachers.
Average customer rating:
- Solid work of fascinating history.
- Excellent, original work of historical journalism
- Great Book
- The Lead up to World War Two
|
On Borrowed Time: How World War II Began.
Leonard Mosley
Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0394439104 |
Customer Reviews:
Solid work of fascinating history........2004-11-22
Perhaps the best work of history I have ever read. That is all.
Excellent, original work of historical journalism.......2000-07-17
This is a well written, well researched text which includes a great deal of material drawn from the author's own notes, taken as a reporter inside Germany and a number of Eastern countries just prior to the outbreak of World War II. Like his contemporary, William Shirer, Leonard Mosley brings a professional eye to the major events of the period leading up to the start of the war, and the fact that he was often sur place, gives the book a most authentic ring. The book raises a number of seemingly minor but possibly vital questions such as: would Hitler's attitude to Chamberlain have been different had the British P.M. not turned up in Berchtesgarden with a staff of only four people? Certainly he began to develop a degree of contempt for Chamberlain from that meeting onward, and when it came time for the fateful meeting on the Rhine some months later, Hitler was openly contemptuous of the British P.M.
Would things have also been different had the Czechoslovakian President, Eduard Benes, had more sleep just prior to the events of September 1938? Would he have seen things more clearly and called in the Russians, as he probably should have done (and, it is believed, nearly did do)? And would it not have been much more favourable for the British and French to fight Germany with Czechoslovakia in 1938, than without her in 1939? Mosley is very good at asking these sorts of questions, which, so many years later, may prove to have been very decisive indeed.
How many odd events seemed to influence the mood of the leaders of that time. How many messages failed to get through to the right place. Sometimes they were inexplicably held up en route (Mosley suggests it may have been due, on occasions, to Communist spies in the British Secret Service - like Donald McLean). At other times, well placed people (like Paul Stehlin, the French Air Attaché in Berlin), tried to warn their governments repeatedly that things were hotting up, but were not taken seriously. As for the extraordinary series of errors committed by the Anglo-French military and political delegations to Moscow just prior to the invasion of Poland, Mosley covers them in detail and highlights many points hitherto overlooked.
These and many other forgotten issues probably exerted a far greater influence at the time than has been thought since. Yet in the end, it was the personality of Adolf Hitler himself, although set off and to some extent complemented in exactly the wrong way by the French and British leaders of the period (and one might add, the Italian), which proved decisive. From the very start, it was undoubtedly Hitler's war, and Mosley brings this historical imperative more firmly into the light of day than ever. It nevertheless leaves one quite breathless, to see in detail how it all came about.
Great Book.......2000-06-14
Of all the books I have read about this period, On Borrowed Time, is without a doubt the best. Well written, tension filled and full of outrage. This book explains how the democratic states lost their way in the shadow of Hitler's evil. Highly recommended.
The Lead up to World War Two.......1999-12-29
This book is about the lead up to World War Two in Europe. It details much that went on in Europe from the rise of Nazism in Germany, thru the secret pact between Germany and the U.S.S.R. to divide Poland, to the beginning of the war itself. It details many of the problems with the governments of Poland, France, and Britian that allowed them to think that agreements with Hitler would be more than the paper they were written on.
Good book. If you can find it.
Book Description
Just weeks after World War II had ended, a young cipher clerk named Igor Gouzenko walked out of the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa with secret papers stuffed under his shirt and headed straight for the offices of a city newspaper. His action would change the course of the twentieth century.
Gouzenko’s defection sent shockwaves through Washington, London, Moscow, and Ottawa. It was the first from a Soviet Embassy, and the smuggled documents, which suggested that agents in North America were feeding atomic secrets to Moscow, sparked a witch-hunt for spies, including not only Americans and Canadians, but a leading British nuclear scientist, Allan Nunn May.
FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover used Gouzenko’s defection to demonize the Soviets and discredit the leftists in President Harry Truman’s White House. All he had needed to push his agenda was evidence of spying, and Gouzenko delivered the goods. The FBI and the House Un-American Activities Committee used Gouzenko’s revelations to go after Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White, and many others. And all the while, infamous MI-5 double-agent Kim Philby kept his Soviet masters apprised. The Cold War had truly begun.
In this first book to tell the Gouzenko story, Amy Knight uses newly declassified files as well as interviews with several of the key players to examine the substance of Gouzenko’s revelations and delve into his hidden motives for defecting. She explains how Gouzenko was really a pawn in a much larger game. And she brilliantly connects these events to the hardening of relations between Moscow and the West, the practice of guilt by association, and the end of the movement for international control of the atomic bomb.
Customer Reviews:
a really brilliant work.......2006-09-08
i bought this out of interest, after seeing it had been nominated for a literary prize here in canada. i'm glad i did. it's such an important part of history - and this is the first book that examines with riveting detail - the story about gouzenko, a soviet clerk who defected. the documents, letters and accounts are really interesting, and the author makes it a really brilliant read.
Book Description
Have humans always fought and killed each other, or did they peacefully coexist until organized states developed? Is war an expression of human nature or an artifact of civilization? Questions about the origins and inherent motivations of warfare have long engaged philosophers, ethicists, and anthropologists as they speculate on the nature of human existence. In How War Began, author Keith F. Otterbein draws on primate behavior research, archaeological research, and data gathered from the Human Relations Area Files to argue for two separate origins. He identifies two types of military organization: one that developed two million years ago at the dawn of humankind, wherever groups of hunters met, and a second that developed some five thousand years ago, in four identifiable regions, when the first states arose and proceeded to embark upon military conquests.
In careful detail, Otterbein marshals evidence for his case that warfare was possible and likely among early Homo sapiens. He argues from comparison with other primates, from Paleolithic rock art depicting wounded humans, and from rare skeletal remains embedded with weapon points to conclude that warfare existed and reached a peak in big game hunting societies. As the big game disappeared, so did warfare--only to reemerge once agricultural societies achieved a degree of political complexity that allowed the development of professional military organizations. Otterbein concludes his survey with an analysis of how despotism in both ancient and modern states spawns warfare.
A definitive resource for anthropologists, social scientists, and historians, How War Began is written for all who are interested in warfare, whether they be military buffs or those seeking to understand the past and the present of humankind.
Customer Reviews:
The complete pack: origins of war, agriculture and the state.......2005-01-05
This is a masterful work that can be savoured by the professional historian and educated layperson alike. In this book, Otterbein challenges the notions that there was no warfare before the Neolithic period, that early agriculturalists engaged in warfare and that military conquest led to the first, pristine, states. He identifies an evolutionary sequence that goes from no war, to internal conflict, to combat between elite warriors and to battles between massed infantry. In short, he provides us with a framework to understand the way the spread of Homo Sapiens, the origin of war, the origin of agriculture and the origin of the state are inextricably intertwined (to put it in a nutshell, PLANTS plus SOIL AND WATER plus NO WAR led to THE STATE). Besides, the book is not a difficult reading (content: 5 starts; pleasure of reading: 4 to 3).
Other books I would recommend to read are the following:
- above all, the masterful "War in human civilization", by Azar Gat;
- and then, "The Origins of War. From the Stone Age to Alexander the Great", by Arther Ferrill, "War before Civilization. The Myth of the Peaceful Savage", by Lawrence Keeley; and "Historical Dynamics. Why states rise and Fall", by Peter Turchin.
Average customer rating:
|
1939;: How the war began
Wilhelm Ziegler
Manufacturer: Reclam-druck
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
 General
| Europe
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| World War II
| Military
| History
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: B00086CZFE |
Product Description
The history of the Second World War is usually told through its decisive battles and campaigns. But behind the front lines, behind even the command centers of Allied generals and military planners, a different level of strategic thinking was going on. Throughout the war the 'Big Three' - Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin - met in various permutations and locations to thrash out ways to defeat Nazi Germany - and, just as importantly, to decide the way Europe would look after the war. This was the political rather than military struggle: a battle of wills and diplomacy between three men with vastly differing backgrounds, characters - and agendas. Focusing on the riveting interplay between these three extraordinary personalities, Jonathan Fenby re-creates the major Allied conferences including Casablanca, Potsdam and Yalta to show exactly who bullied whom, who was really in control, and how the key decisions were taken. With his customary flair for narrative, character and telling detail, Fenby's account reveals what really went on in those smoke-filled rooms and shows how "jaw-jaw" as well as "war-war" led to Hitler's defeat and the shape of the post-war world
Book Description
Nevada entered the Union in 1864 as the thirty-sixth state, a mere two decades after John Charles Frémont and his party undertook the first Euro-American exploration of the Great Basin. However, the intervening years were exceptionally eventful--gold was discovered in California in 1848; the debate over slavery in the territories made the Far West a significant topic of congressional concern; and the Mormon establishment in Utah stimulated national suspicion of the sect's ambitions and policies--giving this remote, sparsely populated region on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada an importance that it probably would not have had in less turbulent times. In 1849, more than 22,000 people traveled the emigrant trails across the Great Basin, and soon Mormons from Utah set up a trading station in the Carson Valley to reap profit from the emigrant trade and anchor the western periphery of what their leader, Brigham Young, envisioned as a Mormon inland empire. Miners in Gold Canyon (just south of what is now Virginia City) and settlers in the Carson Valley were pushing the Native Americans out of their ancient homelands and vying with one another for control of choice land and rudimentary local governments.
In Devils Will Reign, acclaimed historian Sally Zanjani recounts the momentous early history of the territory that is now known as Nevada, weaving the colorful saga of this rowdy frontier into the larger story of national political crises and economic ambitions, rapid development in California, and religious antipathy toward the polygamous Mormons. Here are intrepid frontiersmen, beleaguered Native Americans, zealous Mormons, and colorful characters and farmers, including a group of African Americans who successfully settled in the Carson Valley. Zanjani covers the lives of the pioneers, as well as the development and impact of the Comstock silver bonanza and the tenuous, halting efforts of the region's residents to create first a territorial, then a state government. Seldom has the process of western settlement and government-making been described with such detail and insight.
Books:
- Copy This! : Lessons from a Hyperactive Dyslexic who Turned a Bright Idea Into One of America's Best Companies
- Cut to the Chase: and 99 Other Rules to Liberate Yourself and Gain Back the Gift of Time
- "Daddy's Gone to War": The Second World War in the Lives of America's Children
- Daddy Hugs 1 2 3
- Discovering Another Way: Raising Brighter Children While Haveing a Meaningful Career
- Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care
- Dry: A Memoir
- Duermete, Nino
- Educating Esme: Diary of a Teacher's First Year
- Encyclopedia of Nutritional Supplements: The Essential Guide for Improving Your Health Naturally
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
- Apple Pro Training Series: Logic Pro 7 and Logic Express 7
- The Most Amazing Thing
- The World's History, The, Combined Volume
- The Sense and Sensibility: Screenplay & Diaries : Bringing Jane Austen's Novel to Film
- Aerosol Technology: Properties, Behavior, and Measurement of Airborne Particles
- Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century
- Butterworths International Taxation of Financial Instruments and Transactions
- The Impact Of The Internal Market On Pay And Collective Bargaining
- The New Working Woman's Guide to Retirement Planning: Saving and Investing Now for a Secure Future
