Welcome to European Tribune. It's gone a bit quiet around here these days, but it's still going.
Display:
I looked at some of his online books.  Not having read any of them I cannot offer much of an educated opinion, but one thing that I have noticed that has stuck with me is that he's a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.  Is there any concern about this guy's conservative bias in writing history?

Some of the more notable "fellows" of this american right wing think tank also include:

    * Robert Bork, Distinguished Visiting Fellow
    * Dinesh D'Souza, Research Fellow
    * Milton Friedman, Senior Research Fellow
    * Newt Gingrich, Distinguished Visiting Fellow
    * Edwin Meese III, Distinguished Visiting Fellow
    * John Raisian, Director
    * Condoleezza Rice, Senior Fellow (as of this writing, June 2004, on leave to serve as National Security Advisor)
    * Peter Berkowitz, Research Fellow

Information from dKosopedia - http://www.dkosopedia.com/index.php/Hoover_Institution


Unlearn.

by Delphian on Tue Dec 20th, 2005 at 09:48:02 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Ugh. Didn't knew. I only knew his tepid Atlanticist op-eds in the Guardian, and the opposed fame as a good historian.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Tue Dec 20th, 2005 at 09:58:32 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I think he has written some pretty pro-European and anti-Bush stuff, and my memory is that he is a pretty respected scholar on Eastern Europe.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Tue Dec 20th, 2005 at 10:11:11 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I think he has written some pretty pro-European and anti-Bush stuff

Yes, he did - but he always argued for close ties across the Atlantic, to the extent that it castrated the pro-European and anti-Bush points he made. As a result, his Bush criticisms could be compared to that of DLC Democrats, and his European vision wasn't confortable. (Back when I read the Guardian every day - 2003 -, I used to read every column of his - but after a while got enough of it.)

No comment on his credentials as historian.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Tue Dec 20th, 2005 at 10:33:04 AM EST
[ Parent ]
'No comment', as in: "won't dispute".

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Tue Dec 20th, 2005 at 10:33:49 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I used to read every column of his - but after a while got enough of it.)

Me too. Still, I don't think he's on a par with the other Hooverites listed above, ie he's more centrist.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Tue Dec 20th, 2005 at 10:59:12 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I don't think he's on a par with the other Hooverites listed above, ie he's more centrist.

Indeed, for a start, he has one leg in Europe, not trampling on Europe :-)

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Tue Dec 20th, 2005 at 11:24:03 AM EST
[ Parent ]
He's not really a historian, though he was trained as one and wrote a solid history of Germany's foreign policy as regards Europe - east and west - "In Europe's Name".  His true talent is in writing long essays on current events (much better than his Guardian columns). That's what his book on Solidarity really is, and you can't find a better description of the atmosphere of the Polish and Czech anti-communist opposition than in his essays collected in "Uses of Adversity"
by MarekNYC on Tue Dec 20th, 2005 at 11:37:24 AM EST
[ Parent ]
TGA would qualify as a 'wet' Europhilic Tory in the UK, but not as a conservative in the US. He is also rather unthrilled with Blair for what he has referred to Blair playing the butler Jeeves to the bumbling Bush - except with less dignity and little influence. He called Bush's re-election a 'grisly result' in a column which compared black voters waiting in endless lines to the black voters who put an end to apartheid - only without the desired result.

Or read his piece on Bush's most recent trip to Europe:
To watch President George Bush in Brussels this week was to see how far Europe has to go if it wants to be taken seriously in the world. On the one side, you had Caesar. On the other, the prime minister of Luxembourg. And of Belgium. And the president of the European commission. And the European Union's high representative for foreign policy. And the commissioners for external relations and trade. And dozens of other heads of national governments, different European institutions and departments, all falling over each other to bask in the sunshine of that imperial presence they so often privately deplore.
[...]

Meanwhile, there was Caesar. Two hours before his keynote speech began, we filed through a shabby back entrance into the Concert Noble, a grand ballroom with crimson drapes, where the Belgian aristocracy still meet once a year for a bal de la noblesse. Gradually the front rows filled with ambassadors and minor dignitaries of the outer empire. A few American tribunes, prefects and great merchants were in evidence. A little later came the proconsuls, men of imperial gravitas, stately courtesy and crisp, regulation haircuts. All wore the Washingtonian toga: sober, dark suit and white shirt.

After a long wait, it was the time of the consuls and high imperial officials, including Condoleezza Rice. Buzz, buzz, went the crowd. Suddenly we found ourselves rising to our feet, led by the imperial household, only to greet Caesar's wife, Laura. A few minutes later, a voice from the loudspeakers announced: "The prime minister of Belgium ... and the president of the United States". We rose again, and there they were, the Belgian prime minister, with specs and floppy hair, loping in like some gangling, outsize schoolboy, and, flanked by his praetorian guard of secret servicemen, the US president, marching like an emperor: Tom and Jerry.

The Agony and Extase

I don't think his Hoover colleagues would approve.

by MarekNYC on Tue Dec 20th, 2005 at 11:16:03 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Display:

Top Diaries

Occasional Series