PositiveThe Guardian (UK)Sorge’s is the tale of a deeply flawed chancer who lived his private and public life very close to the edge but who held fast to his ideological convictions, in spite of many moments of depression and loneliness. It deserves a wider audience than it has had so far. There are few books in English on Sorge, the best being Stalin’s Spy by my former Guardian colleague, Robert Whymant (1996). He had the advantage of interviewing people who knew Sorge intimately, including Ishii and one of Sorge’s German girlfriends. Coming later when no witnesses remained alive, Owen Matthews builds on Whymant’s material, as well as on a formidable archive. A Russian-speaker, he also uses several Russians’ memoirs. He tells the dramatic story well, not least the final twist.
Max Hastings
MixedThe Guardian\"This is very much a book about soldiers for soldiers. After interviewing dozens of veterans and trawling through scores of oral histories, as well as the memoirs of North Vietnamese and Vietcong cadres who became disillusioned after victory and fled to the US, Hastings chronicles every battle over a 30-year period. There’s inspiring but also grim material, tales of heroism, self-sacrifice and risk-taking, brutality and war crimes, frustrated and frightened soldiers, drug-taking and desertions ... Hastings’s emphasis on the soldiers’ war gives his book a lopsided feel. It underplays the drama of the political war at home, and the scale of opposition.\
William Taubman
MixedThe GuardianWilliam Taubman...has done a phenomenal amount of research into Gorbachev’s career, including interviews with the man himself. He relies heavily on accounts by the closest aides, in particular the sparky diary of Anatoly Chernyaev, which reveals Gorbachev’s bewildering volatility of mood as well as his intellectual contradictions. But Taubman concludes he has to leave many questions about Gorbachev unresolved … Taubman’s approach to this tumultuous story is chronological and Kremlin-oriented. While this means that his fast-paced narrative leaps about, accurately reflecting Gorbachev’s tactical zigzagging, it leaves insufficient space for describing the context of daily life for Soviet citizens and the mounting disillusionment with reform that led many Russians to view Gorbachev as an agent of destruction. It also means the book lacks an explanation for basic issues.
RaveThe GuardianChina Miéville’s contribution in October is to get away from ideological battles and go back to the dazzling reality of events. There is no schadenfreude here about the revolution’s bloody aftermath, nor patronising talk of experiments that failed because they were doomed to fail. Known as a left-wing activist and author of fantasy or what he himself calls weird fiction, Miéville writes with the brio and excitement of an enthusiast who would have wanted the revolution to succeed ... The story is old but Miéville retells it with verve and empathy. He brilliantly captures the tensions of coup and counter-coup and the kaleidoscope of coalitions that formed and then broke. There is wonderful detail on small points too ... his moral is that we should keep trying. Change is not doomed to make things worse. With a different external environment and different actions by the main participants, the October revolution might have had a better outcome. Its degradation was 'not a given, was not written in any stars.'
Helen Rappaport
MixedThe GuardianRappaport’s sources give a vivid account of this complexity. Yet her book lacks two things. The first is sophisticated analysis of the big issues that divided Russia’s politicians and their impassioned supporters...Rappaport’s own views instinctively reflect her sources’ attitudes, so that her writing lacks impartiality, let alone curiosity as to why so many Petrograders wanted revolution, beyond the broad-brush point that tens of thousands were hungry and impoverished...The second problem is the lack of Russian voices in the book. Rappaport makes no pretence that hers is anything but an account of foreigners’ experiences in someone else’s revolution. Nevertheless, a few chapters on what Russians were thinking would have provided an alternative to the parade of outsiders’ prejudice she offers ... Rappaport chooses their graphic accounts brilliantly. What today’s editors like to call the backstory is the bit that evades her.
