From Library Journal
Until now, Nikita Khrushchev has been largely regarded as a historical bridge from Stalin to Gorbachev. This book, edited by Taubman (Bertrand Snell Professor of Political Science at Amherst Coll.), Khrushchev's son Sergei (Brown Univ.), and others sets out to clarify the role Khrushchev played in advancing the USSR to superpower status. When Gorbachev lifted the stigma from the study of Khrushchev in the 1980s and state archives were opened, the operative question changed from why he failed to what made him the Soviet leader. In most recent work about Soviet history, such as Martin Malia's Russia Under Western Eyes (LJ 2/1/99), Gregory Freeze's Russia: A History (LJ 5/1/98), and Robert Service's A History of Twentieth-Century Russia (LJ 3/1/98), Khrushchev is given little space, so this book fills a void in Soviet studies. It lacks readability, however, as the writing varies from author to author. The subject matter is more or less interesting, depending on your knowledge of recent Soviet history. Recommended for Soviet history collections.
-Harry Willems, Southeast Kansas Lib. System Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Kirkus Reviews
A filial but revealing semi-biography of Nikita Khrushchev by his son, now at the Institute for International Studies at Brown. Because Sergei Khrushchev intends to deal only with those matters he discussed with his father or personally witnessed, he leaves out much of the early life, except for a short memoir composed by his mother, but he supplements the narrative with portions of the full text of Khrushchev's own memoirs. Sergei is strongest on the development of Soviet weapons, particularly missiles, since he was attached as an engineer to one of the main designers. But that perspective is highly relevant to the US-Soviet relationship during that period and to Nikita Khrushchev as a man. To the end of his life, Sergei says, his father could not watch films about the war or read books on the subject. Whatever his blusterand he concluded after the Suez crisis that his opponents could be intimidated by ithe didn't even dream of using force. Sergei records his father's tongue-lashing of Marshal Grechko, then commander of the ground forces, for suggesting the conquest of Western Europe. He doesnt think much of his father's decision to try to station missiles in Cuba``To this day I can't understand how Father believed such primitive reasoning,'' he laments in recording the recommendation that the missiles could be disguised as coconut palmsbut he pays tribute to the wisdom and courage of both Kennedy and Khrushchev in restraining the fervor of their respective hotheads during the crisis. Indeed, Sergei's account of that crisis may be the most psychologically acute we have of the reactions on both sides. A fascinating portrait of a man of immense vitality, a fervent Communist, convinced that the Soviet Union would surpass the US, and the process by which he began subconsciously to understand that the system itself did not work. --
Copyright ©2000, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
See all Editorial Reviews
(1)
