The Grand Failure; The Birth and Death of Communism in the Twentieth Century
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1989. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. x, 278 pages. Tables. Index, Author's Note. Pencil erasure residue on fep. DJ has slight wear and soiling. Zbigniew Kazimierz "Zbig" Brzezinski (March 28, 1928 – May 26, 2017) was an American diplomat and political scientist. He served as a counselor to President Lyndon B. Johnson from 1966 to 1968 and was President Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor from 1977 to 1981. Brzezinski belonged to the realist school of international relations. Major foreign policy events during his time in office included the normalization of relations with the People's Republic of China (and the severing of ties with the Republic of China on Taiwan); the signing of the second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II); the brokering of the Camp David Accords; the transition of Iran from an important U.S. ally to an anti-Western Islamic Republic; encouraging dissidents in Eastern Europe and emphasizing human rights in order to undermine the influence of the Soviet Union; the arming of the mujahideen in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; and the signing of the Torrijos-Carter Treaties relinquishing U.S. control of the Panama Canal after 1999. Brzezinski served as the Robert E. Osgood Professor of American Foreign Policy at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and a member of various boards and councils. He appeared frequently on the PBS program The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, ABC News' This Week with Christiane Amanpour, and on MSNBC's Morning Joe. Based on a Kirkus review: An engrossing and persuasive case for the proposition that international communism is, if not dying, at least fading away. Director of the National Security Council during the Carter Administration, Brzezinski offers an unsparing appraisal of a sociopolitical doctrine that once threatened to take the 20th century by storm. He concludes, global communism has foundered, not prospered. In the USSR, the author notes, Gorbachev's renewal efforts have produced unintended consequences, including divisive debates over the Communist Party's stewardship and de facto subversion of the system's ideological foundations. Communism's "fatal dilemma" in the Soviet Union, he asserts, is that "its economic success can only be purchased at the cost of political stability, while its political stability can only be sustained at the cost of economic failure." The USSR, Brzezinski argues, is losing its grip on long-restive Eastern Europe satellites. The author makes clear, China's commercially oriented pragmatists are marching to the beat of a different drummer, as are nationalists in ethnic republics like the Ukraine. The central issue, in his opinion, is whether the Soviet brand of communism is evolving toward a more permissive and innovative future--or is decaying, even self-destructing. To the extent that genuine pluralism strikes him as an unlikely prospect, the author is not sanguine on this score; the most probable scenario is a lengthy period of inconclusive conflict that could aggravate communism's systemic crisis. An instructive and accessible audit of a secular creed that has encountered increasingly tougher going in the marketplace of ideas. Condition: Very good / Very good.
Keywords: Communism, Cold War, Foreign Policy, Russia, Glasnost, Perestroika, Gorbachev, Eastern Europe, Soviet Union, Industrialization, Perestroika, Socialism, Stalinist, Reform, Revisionism, Pluralism, Developing Countries
ISBN: 0684190346
[Book #73214]
Price: $45.00