Stasiland:: Anna Funder

 

For the 19 years or so that I lived through the Cold War, the main belligerent was the Soviet Union. East Germany was pretty much ignored for me except for the "Wall" the dividing symbol between East and West. This book is the Soviet state, East German's story.

I've read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, life in the Gulags, living repressed. In some ways the stories are the same, but it is also about making sense of these individual stories in East Germany after the "Wall" has come down.

It is also about the officers, the Stasi police, their lament over the good old days now gone with the fall of the "Wall", and others who seem to have genuine remorse.

It is good for while reading the book to be reminded of how lucky I am. That I can have a different political opinion and not be the "Enemy" of your country.

4/5

 

Arsenals of Folly:: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race, Richard Rhodes

 

I'm currently reading "Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race" by Richard Rhodes, just a few quick thoughts::

::Amazed my that when Gorbachev and Regan meet in private. Regan had to use cue cards. ? beginning of Alzheimer's.

:: Regan was a man of contradictions. He was deeply religious, convinced of  Armageddon and End Times. Yet was happy for his son who worked for playboy as a writer to interview him.

:: Gorbachev was the master politician more so than anyone I know. He worked the Regan administration, more importantly he had the measure of the internal government of the Soviet Union. If he had not been there, I'm convinced there would have been a civil war or a Stalinist Regime. He is one of the major reasons for prosperity of Russia today.

:: I was surprised at how early on Regan provoked the Russians and how nearly they responded. This period was very similar to the Cuban missile crisis.

I thought that Richard Rhodes' making of the Atomic Bomb was great. This book I rate just as highly.