Navigating a contentious geopolitical landscape rife with covert interests, Horton delivers a compelling analysis exposing the duplicity of U.S. foreiNavigating a contentious geopolitical landscape rife with covert interests, Horton delivers a compelling analysis exposing the duplicity of U.S. foreign policy and the calamitous fallout it continues to perpetuate today. American author Scott Horton is the director of The Libertarian Institute, and host of Antiwar Radio, where he has reported on international affairs since 2003. Rooted in over 7,000 citations from declassified documents, interviews, media reports, and findings from the United Nations, Scott Horton’s latest book, "Provoked", aims to deconstruct the specious claims of Western media and uncover the underhanded actions that instigated America’s new Cold War.
The book follows successive U.S. presidential administrations, starting with the George H.W. Bush administration, and their negotiations with Mikhail Gorbachev following the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. Horton primarily follows a chronological path, occasionally shifting forward or backward in time to provide context or reveal relevant connections. Although the content is cogent and exhaustive, the book reads like a concatenation of note cards, with oddly subtitled paragraphs and occasional satirical remarks. The scarcity of editorial commentary and the lack of visuals (maps, images, graphs, or polls) make for a rather dry reading experience. Despite this, the book delivers a flood of credible accounts and compelling details, bound to keep shocked readers turning the page.
Delving into the dissolution of Yugoslavia, Horton cuts through the hypocrisy of the Clinton administration and the unsanctioned bombing campaign of 1999. He then smoothly transitions into the war on terrorism of the �90s and �00s, suggesting that CIA-funded Jihadist groups during the Soviet-Afghan War, along with the backing of Islamic militant groups during the Kosovo War, provided fertile ground for a multinational Jihadist movement to grow and spread throughout the region, leading to terrorist attacks worldwide. Instead of working in conjunction to stifle these murderous groups, Putin and Bush continued to butt heads as they simultaneously grappled for hegemony in the Caucasus region.
After establishing the foundation for the current heightened tensions between Russia and the West, the final 170 pages are dedicated solely to the developments, storylines, and leaks emerging from the Russo-Ukrainian war between March 2022 and October 2024. Horton condemns Putin’s actions: “This does not justify what Putin did in response, or the worsening problems that are almost certain to result from his war,� while highlighting alternatives Putin could have pursued instead of invading Ukraine. He also investigates why promising peace deals failed early in the war and continue to be discouraged by Western powers. As an anti-war advocate, Horton acknowledges his bias while also providing a convincing argument for a reduction in U.S. intervention.
Critics hoping to dismiss this work as “Russian Propaganda� will be disappointed to find their hackneyed rhetoric cited and deflected with an array of verified records, testimonies, and legal documents to support his arguments. However, the deliberate intention to shape the book around the errors of American policymakers will likely limit its audience.
Poised to be a seminal historical account of ongoing affairs, "Provoked" guides readers through the missteps of hawkish U.S. officials, the nefarious involvement of NGOs in notorious color revolutions, and the concerted effort to destabilize the Caucasus region in favor of the West. Horton not only casts doubt on the shallow slogan of 'unprovoked attack'—routinely trotted out by politicians with antagonistic motives—but also erodes the spurious moral and democratic claims made to defend interventionist actions. Despite its textbook-like structure and ideological lean, "Provoked" succeeds as a pertinent and invaluable resource for understanding modern-day conflicts through a well-contextualized lens....more
Oozing with crude narratives and ludicrous obscenities, Vladimir Sorokin’s latest collection of stories is guaranteed to disturb readers while concurrOozing with crude narratives and ludicrous obscenities, Vladimir Sorokin’s latest collection of stories is guaranteed to disturb readers while concurrently seducing their undivided attention. Each story within Dispatches from the District Committee features unbridled vulgarity and tantalizing prose, such as “A Hearing of the Factory Committee,� where the haranguing of a reprobate worker descends into madness, or “A Free Period,� which follows the sexual abuse of a schoolboy in the name of secrecy and curiosity. Sorokin’s surrealism and provocative storytelling manage to wildly stimulate while illustrating the absurdities of life in the Soviet Union.
Dispatches from the District Committee contains twenty short stories ranging from political satire to culture caricatures to pure insanity. The standout story from the collection is “The Quilted Jacket,� which centers around an odious, fetid, rotten jacket—one that exists in every squalid Soviet household and refuses to be thrown out by older generations. Sorokin’s use of rich symbolism dazzles in his description of the quilted jacket, with its indeterminate color and elongated sleeves with “purulent patches charging down,� as the narrator’s intransigent grandpa vehemently declares that it’s better to “fix or sew� the jacket than throw it out. Unlike some of the other stories, Sorokin’s criticism of the U.S.S.R. and all of its failed reforms comes across clearly and powerfully through the allegory of this gangrenous, diseased jacket.
His disdain for the empty promises and fallacies of Communist Russia shines through in “Sergei Andreyevich�. In the story, a group of young students share their ambitious projections for their future careers while sitting around a campfire with their teacher, Sergei Andreyevich. Accompanying Sergei to fill a bucket of water, Solokov, the most dedicated of the bunch, expresses his appreciation for his mentor before gleefully scarfing down his feces—an ending likely to puzzle many readers, but one that mocks the willingness of the youth to worship and consume all the lies produced by authority. In the salacious story “A Free Period�, a young boy, raised to join the Komsomol, finds himself reprimanded for his misbehavior by a female administrator. She aggressively presses him to admit his sexual curiosity before exposing her genitals and instructing him to perform lewd acts. Following the molestation, she exemplifies the amoral, exploitative power of authority by demanding that he promise secrecy and “swear to the Party.�
Despite the thrilling components and abnormal premises, many of Sorokin’s disturbing stories remain "inside baseball"—in other words, they require a thorough contextual understanding or referential explanation to assign any semblance of meaning to the contained absurdity. Searching for a precise message will set many readers up for failure once the stories abruptly depart from cogency and transition into crude, risible scenes. While some of these phantasmagorical shifts stimulate with or without context, other stories, like “Love� or “Monument,� seem solely crafted for Sorokin enthusiasts.
No matter how you experience Sorokin’s intentionally jarring and discomfiting imaginations, there is no doubt that these stories will sear themselves into your memory. Praise must adorned upon Max Lawton for his commitment to translate such an explosive, vivacious set of a stories. Paired with dazzling artwork for each story, Dispatches from the District Committee is an inventive collection that demands strong reactions. Sorokin’s creative mind holds a unique position within Postmodernism, and these stories, although not for the prude or the queasy, offer an example of what his unrestrained mind can produce....more
Symphonic in structure, Heimito von Doderer’s sprawling chronicle *The Demons* portrays the deeply entangled, ideologically fractured world of Vienna,Symphonic in structure, Heimito von Doderer’s sprawling chronicle *The Demons* portrays the deeply entangled, ideologically fractured world of Vienna, in which no single sonorous note can be isolated without losing the harmonious rhythm of the whole. In fact, this universality is alluded to early on in the Overture: *“For the whole is contained in the smallest segment of anyone's life-story; indeed, we may even say that it is contained in every single moment.�* This statement prepares readers for a voluminous narrative that continues to fold and unfold upon itself through its reflexive complexities and intricate details. Trapped in a web of interconnectedness, von Doderer’s decadent Vienna slowly unravels as its citizens grapple with their twisted realities and resistance to fate.
Primarily told through the perspective of Georg von Geyrenhoff, a retired civil servant, the three-part novel chronicles events in Vienna between 1926 and 1927, occasionally deviating with chronological oscillations to uncover pertinent details. Gathering various perspectives, facts, and his own personal accounts, Geyrenhoff slowly pieces the story together, taking periodic breaks before completing his manuscript in the 1950s. On the surface, the plot of *The Demons* is quite straightforward. A conniving financial counsellor Herr Levielle has withheld the immense inheritance from a deceased, wealthy landowner Herr Ruthmayr. Amidst other converging subplots, Geyrenhoff and others work to resolve this matter in favor of the rightful heir—a daughter born of a clandestine relationship. Following the revelation of this secret and its aftermath, the narrator's meticulously crafted chronicle reaches its climax on July 15, 1927, with the burning of the Palace of Justice—a real historical event. However, the story depicts far more than financial corruption and social unrest. Dispersed throughout are reflections on perspectivism, commentary on ideological fanaticism, and gradual shifts within social dynamics.
Rather than provide a pan-optical, reductionist tale told through an omniscient narrator, von Doderer utilizes a non-linear, fragmented perspective that forces readers to digest the minutiae before them while simultaneously encouraging a macro view of matters as they develop. The novel features a diverse and vivid cast of characters, ranging from petty criminals and arrogant intellectuals to corpulent wives. With each chapter, the story spirals and spreads like a rhizome, sprouting profound ideas and presenting a multi-faceted view of Viennese society. Focusing too closely on any one detail or plot point comes at the cost of losing the forest for the trees. True understanding or knowledge can only be found when one zooms out and takes into consideration all perspectives, or as Herr Altschul puts it, *“It almost seems that all capacity for judgment is based solely on taking the proper distance from a subject. Only at the proper distance will the necessary detailed knowledge be found.�* The crown jewel of this novel is its ability to capture the wholeness and interwoven nature of society. This point is further illuminated by the witty, reprobate Kajetan later in the novel when he states, *“All of us are prisms with many facets: we have as many different existences as there are people who know us.�* By breaking out of a parochial and myopic worldview, one is able to view matters from the necessary distance and conduct a proper assessment. Failing to do so not only creates a misunderstanding of individuals, but a poorly constructed view of history.
Another key feature of the novel is von Doderer’s exploration of ideologies, or �*demons*�, and their pernicious effects on individuals and society at large. Whether its Kajetan Schlaggenberg’s comical fixation on rotund, mature women, or the boiling over of socialist fomentation, these various fanatical ideas become elusive driving factors behind major cultural change. Von Doderer overlaps these beliefs with the concept of �*second realities*� and the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. These second realities diverge from the first, or real, reality resulting in dissociation and a downward spiral, as described by the story’s young, ambitious scholar Leonhard Kakabsa: *“All roads of descent lead down, but never do people hate one another so passionately as when they choose different downward paths.�* This point is strengthened by the fictitious medieval manuscript written in an pseudo-archaic language that tells the story of a torturous witch chamber where these demonic ideas ran rampant.
Prolix, catholic, and at times laborsome, *The Demons* is a eccentric novel that rewards patience and attentive reading. As you swirl around in the maelstrom of trivialities and confluence of characters, von Doderer illuminates the symphonic unity of nature where a single instrument cannot be understood in isolation. The harmony must be taken as a whole and examined as a whole. Only then can one hope to seek any truth or gain any knowledge. Only then can one see the taut strings of the bow, witness the arrow as it soars across the sky, and recognize the inevitability of its descent and piercing strike....more
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