I am not quite old enough to remember bomb drills in school. That was, thankfully, not part of the curriculum by the time I was going to school. Still the world changed a lot when Communism fell apart in Eastern Europe, and I have got to see some of that happen, more or less, right before my very eyes. In some cases, the fallout of those momentous changes took quite some time to settle. The former Yugoslavia is one of those instances, with Kosovo being a major part of the dust that has yet to completely settle.
Already eight years ago, Why Kosovo Still Matters by Denis MacShane (ISBN: 978-1-907822-39-1) was printed. At that time, Kosovo had only been independent for three short years, with many in the West wondering why this little country was such a focus for so many in government. The book gives a short history of Kosovo, but spends the bulk of its relatively few pages discussing the more modern history of the country from the fall of Yugoslavia to its troubled beginnings as an independent state. Kosovo faces a number of difficulties. Most are local, many having to do with the hostility of its neighbor and former overlord, Serbia. These are unlikely to subsist soon because of the large Serbian minority in Kosovo. Other problems exist because of the lack of support from the international community. In essence, Europe and the U.S. created the country, but the West has since then done what some perceive as a poor job at integrating the country into the West, which has left Serbia pretty free to meddle in the country it wishes had never been created. Serbia has a few allies in its efforts to keep Kosovo in a constant state of change. Some are more active than others in these efforts, but overall, only a little over half of UN members have recognized Kosovo’s independence. This situation makes it hard for the country to develop and for the people there to experience the benefits that independence and democracy are supposed to bring. The end of the book discusses a few ideas on how to move forward. Although it’s a little dated, some of the ideas being floated as ways to solve Kosovo’s troubles then are still being talked about, such as letting Serbia have the regions populated by a majority Serb population, but that is dismissed out of hand. The problems are best dealt with, according to MacShane, by accepting that both Kosovo and Serbia are going to be around and then moving forward with an eye to improving the lots of the people on both sides of the ethnic divide.
Overall, the book was interesting. The Balkans, and Yugoslavia in general, are fascinating. There’s also an element of frustration for many in the West because of the Western worldview that typically says one should leave the past where it is and look to the future. That often doesn’t float in the East, so I am not sure how well MacShane’s recommendations will play out, even though I largely agreed with them. It was also interesting to read the author’s ideas on how Russian meddling in the Balkans is one of the reasons Kosovo’s troubles with Serbia remain to real and present. That thought fits well with Russia’s actions in other places, where instability seems to be the main goal. My complaints with the book are the same I have with many. The author’s clear Leftist politics stood out, which detracted from the book. Also, the author (who, incidentally, was convicted of various crimes having to do with fraudulent expense accounts) drew heavily on lengthy passages quoted from his journals during his time as the UK European Minister, which were less analytical in nature, detracting from the book (they also included some of ridiculous use of the F-word that people seem to think books need nowadays) rather significantly, I thought.
Already eight years ago, Why Kosovo Still Matters by Denis MacShane (ISBN: 978-1-907822-39-1) was printed. At that time, Kosovo had only been independent for three short years, with many in the West wondering why this little country was such a focus for so many in government. The book gives a short history of Kosovo, but spends the bulk of its relatively few pages discussing the more modern history of the country from the fall of Yugoslavia to its troubled beginnings as an independent state. Kosovo faces a number of difficulties. Most are local, many having to do with the hostility of its neighbor and former overlord, Serbia. These are unlikely to subsist soon because of the large Serbian minority in Kosovo. Other problems exist because of the lack of support from the international community. In essence, Europe and the U.S. created the country, but the West has since then done what some perceive as a poor job at integrating the country into the West, which has left Serbia pretty free to meddle in the country it wishes had never been created. Serbia has a few allies in its efforts to keep Kosovo in a constant state of change. Some are more active than others in these efforts, but overall, only a little over half of UN members have recognized Kosovo’s independence. This situation makes it hard for the country to develop and for the people there to experience the benefits that independence and democracy are supposed to bring. The end of the book discusses a few ideas on how to move forward. Although it’s a little dated, some of the ideas being floated as ways to solve Kosovo’s troubles then are still being talked about, such as letting Serbia have the regions populated by a majority Serb population, but that is dismissed out of hand. The problems are best dealt with, according to MacShane, by accepting that both Kosovo and Serbia are going to be around and then moving forward with an eye to improving the lots of the people on both sides of the ethnic divide.Overall, the book was interesting. The Balkans, and Yugoslavia in general, are fascinating. There’s also an element of frustration for many in the West because of the Western worldview that typically says one should leave the past where it is and look to the future. That often doesn’t float in the East, so I am not sure how well MacShane’s recommendations will play out, even though I largely agreed with them. It was also interesting to read the author’s ideas on how Russian meddling in the Balkans is one of the reasons Kosovo’s troubles with Serbia remain to real and present. That thought fits well with Russia’s actions in other places, where instability seems to be the main goal. My complaints with the book are the same I have with many. The author’s clear Leftist politics stood out, which detracted from the book. Also, the author (who, incidentally, was convicted of various crimes having to do with fraudulent expense accounts) drew heavily on lengthy passages quoted from his journals during his time as the UK European Minister, which were less analytical in nature, detracting from the book (they also included some of ridiculous use of the F-word that people seem to think books need nowadays) rather significantly, I thought.
 | This work, including all text, photographs, and other original work, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 3.0 License and is copyrighted © MMXIV John Pruess. |
George Washington's Secret Six: The Spy Ring That Saved the American Revolution by Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger (ISBN: 978-1-59523-103-1) tells a very interesting story and gives some important insights into just how Washington and the other rebels upset one of the greatest empires in the world. Washington was not opposed at all to spying, and the methods he was willing to employ were rather cutting edge for his time. Importantly, the American forces were first to plunge into the spy game, so the British, who eventually put off the old ways of thinking about spying and the old ways of spying itself, had to play catch up. Since New York was of such great importance to the warring armies, getting solid intelligence out of the Tory-held area was critical to the American cause. Washington’s chief of intelligence, Benjamin Tallmadge, was able to recruit six agents in New York, known as the Culper Ring, after the pseudonyms of the main agents, who then provided the Continental Army with key information throughout the war. They were able to help thwart a British attack on French forces friendly to the American rebels, they helped capture traitor extraordinaire Benedict Arnold, they helped Washington avoid defeat by warning him not to chase after what was a British diversion, and they helped the Continental government fight against British attempts to infuse America with counterfeit money. Kilmeade and Yaeger provide a number of details about those involved in the spy ring, the officers on both sides, and the various events they were involved in from the ring’s inception to the end of the war.
Ahsoka by E. K. Johnston (ISBN: 978-1-4847-8231-6) is the story of former Jedi Padawan, Ahsoka Tano (trained by no other than Darth Vader’s former self, Anakin Skywalker), no longer a Jedi, constantly on the run like others who had been Jedi or Jedi in training at the time of the infamous Order 66. She has hopped from one outlandish Star Wars planet to another, always trying to steer clear of the Empire, but never really managing to do so. Her background as a warrior and soldier is constantly catching up to her, too. The book follows her adventures as she lands in another situation where her better nature and her military skills come in handy to help a few people fight against the oppression of the Empire. She ends up, after overcoming an internal struggle between Ahsoka on the run and Ahsoka the Jedi, helping people from multiple planets, all the while fighting off evil Imperials, including the super creepy inquisitors, who care nothing for the people and planets they oppress.
Pros and Cons: The Criminals Who Play in the NFL (ISBN: 0-446-60747-9) by Jeff Benedict and Don Yaeger delves into the subject of the behavior of professional athletes (and, in a way, college and high school athletes since the authors not that professional athletes who get a pass on bad behavior have been getting similar passes for years). The book relies heavily on statistics, which everyone knows are open to manipulation, but the authors go into detail about their methodology. The bulk of the book is anecdotes regarding various players and their criminal undertakings, ranging from gambling (probably the least harmful thing discussed) to robbery, burglary, and assault, and then on up to murder. It’s tough reading in some places as this raw, and real people are involved. The authors’ position is that players, team management, NFL management, and fans are at fault, but the bulk of the fault lies with team and league management, since they are the ones that push for light punishments, involve their lawyers in an effort to get players off the hook, and stick up for guys who spend their days off skirting the law in myriad ways. They do proffer some solutions, most of which center around harsh penalties for all encounters with the law, not just convictions and not just for what people normally think of as “serious crimes.”
Eurasian Disunion: Russia’s Vulnerable Flanks by Janusz Bugajski and Margarita Assenova (ISBN: 978-0-9855045-5-7) takes a look, region by region, those parts of the world that used to be part of the Soviet bloc and explores their struggles, their ties to Russia, and possible scenarios regarding their futures. Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Central Asia are all examined. Russia is of the opinion that it has and should maintain strategic interest in all these regions and works to maintain a certain level of influence in those areas. It does this through diplomacy, through international organizations, through intelligence operations, through propaganda, through its involvement and control of energy markets, and through supporting general conditions of uncertainty and unrest. (To be fair, other countries and international organizations are involved in the same or similar activities, although motivations may be different.) The authors examine the responses and defenses of the various countries and regions to Russia’s many efforts (the authors identify what they determine to be sixty-eight unique methods Russia tries to project its will on the former Soviet bloc) to protect its influence in those same regions. As noted above, the past twenty or so years have shown that, to varying degrees, the former Soviet countries want to distance themselves from that past and from Russia being their only powerful partner. Most would be happy with engaging with Russia, but not at the expense of other opportunities in the West and in Asia. The authors examine responses to Russia’s efforts and give some brief thoughts on how things might play out given varying scenarios, largely calling for a cross-Atlantic approach that builds on multi-lateral international relations to provide Russia’s flanks with viable alternatives until Russia decides to play by the rules of the game.
Larry H. Miller: Behind the Drive: 99 Inspiring Stories from the Life of an American Entrepreneur, edited by Bryan Miller (ISBN: 978-1-62972-094-4), is a collection of short anecdotes from the lives of those people on whom Larry Miller had a positive impact. Some of the people who contributed were well known, both inside and out of Utah. Others were people I’d never heard of. All had been helped in one way or another by the man that most knew only as the owner of the Utah Jazz (while his car dealership empire was well known, the Jazz were front and center in the minds of everyone that I knew). There was story after story of Larry Miller giving of his time and money to help someone out, including competitors. There were a couple stories from his immediate family indicating that he had a great appreciation and love for his family and wished, as he got to the end of this life, that he had made better decisions about how much time he spent with his family. He was a passionate, hard-working man, driven by love for his family, his community, and his God, and it showed in the way he helped out in so many different people’s lives. He paid off cars, he bought people appliances, he endowed scholarships for poor kids, he worked to keep the Jazz in Utah, seeing them as something the community could gel around, and he supported his family, friends, and community through service in the Church.
Wonder by R. J. Palacio (ISBN: 978-0-375-86902-0), explores this latter form of bullying, but also the ability of some people to rise above it, in a short novel about a kid born with a number of physical birth defects who has decided it’s time to go to school with other kids. He chooses to go to a private school, where he is confronted with all the problems one might expect for a kid facing the trouble of being both the new kid and the kid with some unusual facial features. There are a few kids who are genuine in their interactions with him from day one, but for others, it takes some time. Everything in the book is narrated from a first-person point of view, although the first person sometimes changes, as the reader hears from Auggie’s sister and friends on occasion. They have their own unique takes on the situation and show that there is some internal struggle involved in doing the right thing. By the end of the book, most of kids have come around to accepting Auggie, and even come to his defense when some kids from another school decide to pick on him at an overnight outing (a very real phenomenon, as most people feel free to pick on their own friends, families, hometowns, schools, etc., but won’t put up with a single negative word by an outsider). The main character himself has also done some maturing, learning that despite his differences and the hardship they have caused him, there is much he can and even should do on his own.
Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest by Stephen E. Ambrose (ISBN: 978-1-5011-7940-2) tells the story of a few of the soldiers from that greatest generation. It traces the story of one company from the company’s formation through their intense training, through their roles in some of the most decisive battles of World War II, and then through their march across Europe right to Hitler’s famed headquarters, where they secured and watched over the allied territory. Like the based-on-a-true-story movies that always have a few words about the movie’s heroes before the credits roll, the book had a final chapter about how America’s heroes went through life after the war; with very few exceptions, they lived up to their well-deserved moniker as America ’s greatest. The stories detailed training and then the adrenaline rush of first combat as part of the invasion of Normandy. The men had little use for the French, but a much higher respect for the Dutch. After the initial surges and excitement, they spent months in trenches on the front, and more than a few lost their lives. There was a lot of pain and suffering, but a few light moments were had, too. Throughout it all, the stories weave together a solid narrative of unity and support for each other that comes only through bearing great tribulation together. That unity was one of the men’s greatest assets as they faced their enemy on the battlefields of Europe.
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand (ISBN: 978-0-679-60375-7) is just such a story about overcoming trials. Like so many stories of resilience in the face of overwhelming odds, the story starts with humble origins. Louis Zamperini was the son of Italian immigrants struggling to make ends meet along with most other Depression-era Americans. A caring older brother discovered the track and invited Louie along, later serving as an unofficial coach, and Louie became as star, eventually qualifying for the Olympics, running a race (5,000 meters) he didn’t usually do. He competed admirably in Berlin, finishing eighth against some of the world’s greatest runners. His running career, though, was cut short by the onset of war, and he served as a bombardier. That, too, was cut short because his plane went down during a rescue mission, and he was captured by the Japanese after some time floating in a raft at sea. Floating around for weeks was already an amazing act of survival and resilience, but the worst was yet to come. Zamperini then spent more than two years in various Japanese prison camps undergoing brutal treatment. He and others kept their wits about them by resolving to beat the system and not give in to their captors and abusers. Some made it, some did not. There were some funny stories along the way, but most of it was monotony, drudgery, and pain. Eventually, Zamperini and the others that survived were done with the horrors of the camps because the war ended. Unfortunately, for many, that was not the concrete ending they would’ve preferred. The horrors lived on in many of the former POWs’ minds, causing more than one to turn to alcohol, destructive behaviors, and even suicide to end the pain. Zamperini’s story included a lot of post-war alcoholism, but he eventually quit that thanks to a conversion to evangelical Christianity, in part because of him remembering some promises he made to God while floating aimlessly on the Pacific Ocean in the first few days after his plane went down. Zamperini used this redeeming experience in his life to later inspire and help others as well as come to terms with and even forgive his war-time tormentors.
The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans ad Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics (ISBN: 978-1-101-62274-2) by Daniel James Brown tells a story in which sports and life worked together to teach just such lessons as young men who made up some of the Greatest Generation strove for excellence in their athletic endeavors and in life, garnering a gold medal along the way. The story follows the life of Joe Rantz the closest, but the reader also gets fairly well acquainted with his rowing teammates, some of his family, his girlfriend, and his coaches along the way. They all were the kind of people that made America great — hard workers who were responsible and self-reliant, expecting nothing from others but the best from themselves. Rantz had an interesting childhood in which his mother died, he spent some time living in a mining camp, his step-mother was the stuff of fairy tales, brutally controlling toward his dad and eventually kicking Rantz out of the house when he was still a young teenager. Joe fended for himself, living in the house the rest of his family abandoned, working his way through high school and college. It bordered, in a way, on a tale of survival during his early years. In college, he tried out for and made the rowing team, showing immense potential as a freshman. Hard work over the next three years eventually landed him and his teammates in the Olympics in Berlin, Germany, where Hitler was in his heyday. Rantz and his fellow oarsman from Washington had overcome a lot throughout their lives, many from similar backgrounds to Joe’s, to make it to the Olympics in a sport historically dominated by elites and other from the moneyed class. In Berlin, they overcame more challenges and the home team to capture gold literally right from underneath Hitler’s nose.
The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia (ISBN: 1-58648-001-4) by David E. Hoffman starts long before the ruble crash and financial crisis, telling the story of how Russia came to that point after the fall of Communism. The story is told in a very personal way, relying heavily on the author’s many personal interviews with the major players in industry and politics, as well as his and other journalists’ first-hand experiences during the “wild ’90s” in Russia. The book provides short biographies of the major players, household names in Russia and sometimes beyond well into the early 2000s: Aleksandr Smolensky, Yuri Luzhkov, Anatoly Chubais, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Boris Berezovsky, and Vladimir Gusinsky. The book chronicles these men’s rise to power. They were entrepreneurs, opportunists, risk takers, visionaries, and criminals all rolled into one. The book also provides a lot of information on Boris Yeltsin since the story of the oligarchs is inseparably woven into Yeltsin’s story. From the dying throes of Communism to the dawn of 
The Travels of Marco Polo translated by Ronald Latham (ISBN: 978-0-14-044057-7) is the famous and influential (Columbus was inspired by reading Polo’s account of his travels) tale of travel and adventure that is really quite ethnographic in nature. There is no authoritative version of the book since there are over 150 extant manuscripts, and there are many significant differences. Latham, a Polo scholar, did this translation in 1958 and worked to meld the major manuscripts together, giving the reader a very complete view of Polo’s travels. The focus of Polo’s account is his time in the court of the Mongolian khans, but he discusses his time in what is now Turkey, Iran, Burma, China, Sumatra, India, and Arabia. The descriptions of the people and places are often quite detailed, especially when it comes to court life. Commoners’ lives aren’t given the same level of detail, but the major industries and agricultural pursuits of each region are listed, along with general religious customs, and usually a note or two about interesting flora, fauna, and cultural customs (for instance, sharing wives seems to have been a thing in more than one Asian culture 700 years ago). Polo talked about the spread of Christianity. He talked about various technologies, shipping methods, and Oriental warfare. He always took time to describe the local take on alcohol. He also relayed tales of the supernatural and used interesting words, like “unicorn” (argued by some scholars to mean “rhinoceros”) that renders some of the description of the travels rather hard to believe.
In The Original Argument: The Federalists’ Case for the Constitution, Adapted for the 21st Century by Glenn Beck with Joshua Charles (ISBN: 978-1-4516-5061-7), an attempt is made at making history more accessible to the modern reader. The book is essentially a translation of the majority of the famous 
Visions of Freedom: Wilford Woodruff and the Signers of the Declaration of Independence by Michael de Groote and Ronald L. Fox (ISBN: 978-1-60861-227-7) is a book about Wilford Woodruff’s visions (he had two of them on this subject) and the men that appeared to him. The first part of the book discusses the history behind modern vicarious ordinances in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (anciently, the Bible contains 
Dream Team: How Michael, Magic, Larry, Charles, and the Greatest Team of All Time Conquered the World and Changed the Game of Basketball Forever (ISBN: 978-0-345-52050-0) by Jack McCallum takes a pretty in-depth look at that most famous of basketball teams. The book goes into a lot of detail about how it even came about that the pros were allowed in the Olympics. It was a long, drawn-out process that involved FIBA, the USOC, and the NBA. Once all the egos involved in such organizations were sorted to an acceptable degree, the path was open, and the U.S. got to work putting the Dream Team together. McCallum, who was an NBA writer for a long time, chronicles how each member of the team was selected. He profiles them, some briefly, some in great detail. The qualifying tournament and the Olympics themselves are also described, with the Olympics, obviously, getting more attention even though the games had similar outcomes: blowouts. Since there is so much spectacle that attends the Olympics, and the Dream Team only compounded this effect, there was a bit more to cover. The book finishes with a short section on how the Dream Team had a large impact on the the global game of basketball and talks about the mess that were the next to U.S. Olympic teams.
The Contract: The Journey of Jimmer Fredette from the Playground to the Pros by Pat Forde (ISBN: 978-1-60907-140-0) is essentially the story of how Fredette overcame naysayers like myself throughout his life and achieved one of the lofty goals he has set for himself in his life by making it from a backwater in New York to the NBA. The book draws its name from the highly publicized contract that Fredette signed with his older brother, TJ, pledging that he would do whatever it took to get to the NBA. Fredette had a supportive family, and the book chronicles bouncing balls in the house and a makeshift full court in the back yard that was the place the neighborhood kids wanted to be. Most of all, though, he had TJ there to support him and serve as an unofficial coach and trainer throughout his formative years. The book actually spends a significant number of pages discussing TJ because of his large role in Fredette’s progress both as a basketball player and person. The book chronicles Fredette’s rise through high school and college, where he proved me and about a few million other people wrong by sweeping national player-of-the-year awards his senior year and being the tenth pick in the NBA draft.
The Princess Bride by William Goldman (ISBN: 978-0-15-101544-3), now in a 30th anniversary edition, is the book form of the famous movie. I wasn’t even aware that there was a book until a few years ago. As I tend to be a books-are-better-than-movies person, it immediately went on my list when I heard about it. If one has seen the movie, one has read the book. There are very few differences. I think the only difference is that in the movie the grandpa interrupts the story sometimes, but in the book, it’s the author doing that. In fact, Goldman has concocted an entire alternate persona for himself that is part of the introduction, the main story, and even some end matter. The story, of course, follows the hero after his return to the kingdom where the farm girl he once served is about to be wed to the evil prince, who has devised a plan to have her killed. The story follows the death-defying adventures of Westley as he pursues Buttercup (the names are somewhat ridiculous, but there’s a definite element of humor to the book) and dispatches a few villains on the way. Ultimately, he reaches his prize and defeats the evil, yet ultimately cowardly, prince in an anti-climactic scene where he successfully bluffs that he could get up and fight the prince in a duel, but, in reality, is mostly dead (to quote another famous movie), having recently been brought back to life.
Putin’s Olympics: The Sochi Games and the Evolution of Twenty-First Century Russia (ISBN: 978-1-315-81728-6) is a book by Robert W. Orttung and Sufian N. Zhemukhov that brings both of those interests together. It takes a deeper look than the usual press on the subject at the Sochi Olympics and their greater context in Russia’s domestic and international politics. The book looks at the problems surrounding the hosting of the Olympics in Sochi, which included corruption, a marginalization of civil society, problematic international relations, and the relation of security during the Olympics and its connection to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The viewpoint of the book was from that of the Olympics being something the authors defined as a “mega-project” and how Russia’s rulers, especially President Putin, tried to use that to their own advantages, both personally and to bring Russia’s standing up on the international stage. The authors come to what I consider mixed conclusions, noting that the Sochi games were secure, did result in much-needed infrastructure upgrades in Sochi, and, from Putin’s standpoint, his position was secured because Russians saw the Olympics as a positive for their country, although, as the Shenderovich quote above notes, this is not necessarily a good thing. On the other hand, the successes came at a great price, both monetarily and in prestige internationally, where Russia was hurt by the scandals surrounding the games.