Norman Stone - The Atlantic and Its Enemies

For British affairs, we are indeed spoiled. Hugo Young, One of Us (1989), is understanding of Margaret Thatcher’s approach, though at the time he was a considerable critic. Richard Cockett’s Thinking the Unthinkable (1994) is a classic about the IEA. The memoirs of Denis Healey (1989), Nigel Lawson (1992) and of course Margaret Thatcher herself (1993 and 1995) record the era. John Hoskyns’s Just in Time (2000) is a little gem as to what went wrong, right and wrong again. Ferdinand Mount, Mind the Gap (2004), is an immensely thoughtful exercise. Melanie Phillips, All Must Have Prizes (1996), is another on education. In general, Alan Sked, An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Post-War Britain (1997), and Richard Vinen, Thatcher’s Britain (2009), can be strongly recommended.

The fate of the eighties ‘revolution’ in the Atlantic world causes head-shaking. The poet of the era is Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987), but there are precursors of great power, Radical Chic (1970), The Painted Word (1975), and From Bauhaus to Our House (1981), making mock. For England, Simon Jenkins, Accountable to None (1995), is a brilliant book. David Frum, Dead Right (1995), shows how developments in finance derailed affairs in the USA. By contrast, Lou Cannon, President Reagan (1991), accepts he was wrong about the deficits. Niall Ferguson, Colossus (2005), shakes his head. A very thoughtful account of the USA is John Micklethwaite and Adrian Wooldridge, The Right Nation (2004). The grubby underside of the 1980s appears in Michael Lewis, Liar’s Poker (1989), and Tom Bower, Maxwell (1988), while the strange cultural impoverishment is well displayed by Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation (2002), and Reefer Madness (2004). The thoughtful will find much thought in Seymour Martin Lipset, American Exceptionalism (1996), Michael Medved, Hollywood vs America (1993), and Robert Hewison, Culture and Consensus (1995). Since the financial upheavals that came with the end of the Reagan era, there have been a great many alarmist and even contemptuous accounts, notably from Paul Krugman, e.g. Peddling Prosperity (1994). Joseph Stiglitz, The Roaring Nineties (2004), has less than the usual problem, of failing to explain why the seventies did not roar. Robert L. Bartley, The Seven Fat Years (1995), is another classic on the Reagan years and what went wrong. Kenneth Hopper and William Hopper, The Puritan Gift (2007), is a splendid demonstration of the fantasy world of the business school. Finally, a work of futurology which, unlike so many, survives: Hamish McRae, The World in 2020 (1994).

On the end of the Cold War, aside from Soutou and Fontaine, cited above, there are good essays on separate subjects. John O’Sullivan, The President, the Pope and the Prime Minister (2006), and Peter Schweizer, Victory (1996), set out the Reagan-Thatcher strategy. On separate theatres there are good books, e.g. Walter Lafeber, Inevitable Revolutions , on US involvement in Central America (1984) and an excellent English account, Simon Strong, Shining Path (1992). It notes the Kurdish connection of the Peruvian Sendero Luminoso . Christopher Kremmer, The Carpet Wars (2003), and Henry S. Bradsher, Afghan Communism and Soviet Intervention (1999), cover the Afghan tragedy. As an Islamic dimension developed, self-pity and resentment emerged with Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978), of which there is a stupendous destruction job done by Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing (2006).

For the end of the Soviet bloc, the once sniffed-at Right clearly had the best of things. Vladimir Boukovsky, Jugement à Moscou (1995), is a wonderful book, for some odd reason only partially translated into English. It was based on Politburo documents and much else; see also Evgeny Novikov, Gorbachev and the Collapse of the Soviet Communist Party (1994). There are two further French accounts: Françoise Thom, The Gorbachev Phenomenon (1989), and Alain Besançon, Présent soviétique et passé russe (1980). More conventional accounts are John B. Dunlop, The Rise of Russia and the Fall of the Soviet Empire (1995), and, by a veteran of sovietology, Archie Brown, The Gorbachev Factor (1996). Another view is Ben Fowkes, The Dissolution of the Soviet Union (1997). Ronald G. Suny, The Soviet Experiment (1998), is important for the nationality dimension. Charles Maier, Dissolution (1998), shows how the end of East Germany was planned from Moscow. Jens Hacker, Deutsche Irrtümer, Schönfärber und Helfershelfer der SED-Diktatur im Westen (1992), and Stefan Wolle, Die heile Welt der Diktatur (1998), show how it had to be done in the teeth of considerable unenthusiasm from West Germany.

Finally, Europe. Its ever-closer union does not make for an interesting story line, and that side of things is best confined to efficient short accounts, such as Michael Maclay, The European Union (1998). European success stories are of course there: Charles Powell, España en democracia 1975-2000 (2001), and John Hooper, The New Spaniards (2006), splendidly discuss the case of Spain. However, other than in the British case, the ‘European’ story is on the whole one of head-shaking and pessimism. Marc Fumaroli, L’Etat culturel (1992), is a brilliant book on the displacement of the old university by an ever-grinning ministry of culture. H.-P. Schwarz, Die gezähmten Deutschen (1985), wonders why German policy is either ‘me, too’ or ‘oh, dear’. Bernard Connolly, The Rotten Heart of Europe (1995), is dismissive of Brussels manoeuvring, and David Marsh, Germany and Europe (1994), shows how very keen the Germans were to have, in the flat turn of speech, a European Germany rather than a German Europe. David Smith, Will Europe Work? (1999), is a good piece of Atlantic scepticism. As to where we all go from here, the latter chapters of Niall Ferguson’s Ascent of Money , not greatly interested by Europe, not vastly admiring of the bankers’ role, but very taken up with the relationship of the United States and China, are a very good pointer.

Abakumov, Viktor

Abdullah, King of Jordan

Abercrombie, Sir Patrick

Abidjan

ABM (anti-ballistic missile) treaty (1972)

abortion

Abrams, Creighton

Acheson, Dean

actors, politics of

Adana

Adenauer, Konrad:

acceptance of division of Germany

and Berlin crisis of

diplomatic relations with USSR

and EEC

and Erhard

founding of Christian Democratic Union

and Franco-German relations

privatization policy

and Suez crisis

and universities

and welfare system

Adzhubey, Alexey

Afghanistan

AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations)

Aganbegyan, Abel

Ağca, Mehmet Alı

Agent Orange (herbicide)

Agitation and Propaganda, Department of (USSR)

Agnew, Spiro

Agrarian Party (Czechoslovak)

AIDS

Aitken, Jonathan

Aitmatov, Cingiz

Akhmatova, Anna

Alaska

Alaskan Pipeline

Albania

Albanians

Alevis

Algeria:

French rule

independence

nationalism

oil production

pieds noirs

Algerian war (1954-62)

Algiers

Aliev, Haydar

Allende, Salvador:

background and character

and Carter

election as president