Everthing in this book can be found in a dictionary.

The book The New Russia: Transition Gone Awry is a collection of twenty-seven essays by noted Russian and American economists and analysts, including Oleg Bogomolov, Leonid Abalkin, Georgi Arbatov, Marshall Pomer, and Lawrence Klein (winner of the 1980 Nobel Prize in economics). The book is divided into three main parts ("Economic Role of Government," "Economic Crisis," and "Policy Agenda") and contains a foreword by Mikhail Gorbachev. This volume resulted from the activities of the Economic Transition Group (ETG), an international network of economists set up in 1994 on the initiative of Marshall Pomer (Macroeconomic Policy Institute, Santa Cruz, California) and Alexander Nekipelov (Institute of International Economic and Political Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences). The purpose of the ETG was to bring together prominent economists, many of them Nobel Prize winners, to reexamine the early Yeltsin years and develop an alternative economic strategy that would strengthen democratic government but also "minimize harm in human terms." The contributors advocate a balanced approach to reform that avoids both unrealistic free-market ideals and excessive government control. The chapters are clearly written and cover a wide range of topics, including the shortcomings of the competitive-equilibrium model, origins and consequences of "shock therapy," privatization, corrupt banking and "pyramid schemes," poverty and social assistance, real estate markets, agriculture, coal industry, energy efficiency, human capital, government leadership, and trade within the Commonwealth of Independent States.
In the first essay, Pomer warns against attributing the failures of Russian economic reform to "bad implementation of good policy." He believes that Russian reformers paid too little attention to government's role and placed too much faith in the free market (p. 21). The Western-oriented competitive-equilibrium model (the "neoclassical paradigm") was unsuitable for the Russian economy. "The proposition that the market would adjust on its own without an activist government proved fallacious in Russia," Pomer writes (p. 23). Russian citizens were not ready for "shock therapy." The foreign competition and radical price liberalization (beginning in January 1992) stunned industry. This led to a sharp drop in living standards.
In their essay on crime and corruption, Svetlana Glinkina, Andrei Grigoriev, and Vakhtang Yakobidze point out that perestroika actually fueled corruption (p. 234). Privatization merely transferred the assets of an inherently wealthy country to a powerful elite ("oligarchs"), a politically connected business elite largely oriented toward plunder. Although individual Russian citizens during the first phase of privatization could purchase "vouchers" that were supposedly redeemable for cash or a share of industry, they soon discovered that the vouchers were useless because dividends were rarely paid and investors had no power in the decision-making process.
Banks run by the "oligarchs" sprang up that promised citizens rates of return over 1,000 percent. Desperate to preserve their savings in the inflationary period of the early 1990s, more than 20 million citizens lost everything in what turned out to be "pyramid" schemes. These banks---for which there were no reporting requirements regarding sources of large deposits---were heavily involved in money laundering and embezzlement on the part of insiders (p. 236). According to the authors, "by delaying payments on government obligations and giving short-term interbank credits at outrageous interest rates, the bankers were able to amass substantial fortunes. At the same time, federal and local governments routinely reneged on paying salaries (p. 237). Five of the largest private banks and their leaders---Inkombank (Vinogradov), SBS-Agro (Smolensky and Berezovsky), Most Bank (Gusinsky), Menatep (Khodorkovsky), and Rossiiskii Kredit (Malkin)---routinely granted loans to their affiliated companies for amounts greater than those of their debts to private depositors (p. 242).
The New Russia contains many more insights than can be covered here. Because the book covers many aspects of the Russian economic system, it would be suitable to assign in courses on comparative economics or Russian politics. The detailed, cogent essays written mostly by Russian economists make this book preferable to more generalized books on Russian economic transition written by Western scholars, such as Stephen Cohen's Failed Crusade: America and the Tragedy of Post-Communist Russia (2001) and Steven Solnick's Stealing the State: Control and Collapse in Soviet Institutions (1998), or those that focus almost exclusively on crime and corruption, such as Paul Khlebnikov's Godfather of the Kremlin: Boris Berezovsky and the Looting of Russia (2000).--Johanna Granville, Ph.D. (Stanford University)

The authors of THE NEW RUSSIA: TRANSITION GONE AWRY are to be commended for digging through all the research and putting in the long hours necessary in composing a large work such as this.

Someone who has never been dedicated enough to labor through intensive hours of others' works in order to correlate it with one's own ideas, can possibly understand.

I neither profess to be an authority on Russia nor to understand the transitions taking place as that country enters a new phase in its history, but I admire people like Marshall Pomer and Lawrence R. Klein for taking on such a tremendous task.

Even though I am a fiction writer, I worked with Pomer in proofreading this book, and was stimulated by his tremendous energy and deep love for the Russian people.

In my opinion, this is a five-star book in its field, and should be helpful to those developing the foundation of Russia as her people strive to enter the rapidly-changing marketplace of the third millennium.

- BETTY DRAVIS, author of
MILLENNIUM BABE: THE PROPHECY.

Although it gives a good account about Russian politics and society, Sakwa is a fierce anti-communist and the book is completely written from this perspective.

I have used this book in my class on modern Russian politics. It is a comprehensive and thematically well-rounded monograph, dealing with subjects from political structure to economy to national identity to foreign policy. In its depth of coverage, it is much more than a regular textbook. Textbooks are often simplistic or lopsided, Sakwa's book is not. I particularly like Sakwa's grounding of politics in broader societal trends, political culture and history. It might be rather heavy on undergraduates in its scope and attention to the detail. Other than that, I have no serious criticisms to raise. I would definitely recommend the book to anyone with genuine interest in Russia as a country and as a political entity. It's a good choice for a textbook, most observations are still valid and relevant for the post-Yeltsin era.

It is rare to find academic books which comply with academic rigour, filled with information, data and opinions, and yet which are enjoyable to read. But this book is an exception, like most writings by Richard Sakwa. By inserting some curious historical facts into the studies, and even anecdotes, and by utilizing very refined and enriched vocabulary, the author makes the reading most enjoyable and fascinating, making it a pleasure to read the book - even for those who are just forced to study it out of their tutors' advice, like myself at University ! Wondeful reading, whether or not you are a Russia expert or just interested. The style somewhat resembles that of Tíbor Számuely, also another great writer in this field.

This book was so extremely bias against the Romans that one could easily conclude that the author lost his most beloved ones in a battle against the Romans!! Even his phraseology throughout the book betrays what seems to be a personal hatred of this ancient race. I found his contemptuous remarks to be distracting to the ease of reading. That aside, the author struggles in this book to portray the Celts as a culture much more advanced than was perceived by the first hand accounts of ancient Greek and Roman writers and historians. In doing so he resorts to some fairly weak leaps of logic. His primary view seems to be that to arrive at historical accuracy all one needs to do is to reverse whatever the Roman accounts were in each and every case.

The arguments in this book for Celtic superiority over the Romans is so tainted that in some cases I actually laughed out loud. Reading this book one would think that the armies of Rome won most of their battles by dumb luck. Which is not bad considering that Rome's greatly outnumbered armies eventually conquered almost all of the Celtic lands and added Britian to the Empire, holding it for over 400 years!

If you're interested in names and dates this book is fine. But if you're interested in what the ancient Celts and the Italic/Roman people were actually like, and how the cultures interacted, you'll need to look elsewhere.

Peter Berresford Ellis has done, I think, an excellent job portraying a culture whose accomplishments are far too easily dismissed in favour of other well documented ancient cultures. To present his representation of a culture that traditionally recorded historical events orally, Ellis has had to make some insightful points using the material at hand and has made good work of presenting it in a fashion enjoyable to read.

This is not a very good book, but in the absence of anything else in English it will have to do. Abby Innes is a lecturer of "political sociology" who argues that the 1993 partition of Czechoslovakia was not inevitable. Instead it was in fact the result of the cunning of the Czech Vaclav Klaus and his Civic Democratic Party using and relying on the opportunist Slovak Vladimir Meciar and his Movement for a Democratic Slovakia. Although an overwhelming majority of people in both countries showed no desire for independent states after the 1992 parliamentary elections, Klaus refused to cooperate. Instead of compromising on a new federal structure or rearranging his economic reforms to take into account Slovakia's special needs, he refused to negotiate. Meciar played into his hands by demanding either an extremely loose federalism or independence, which Klaus used as a pretext to partition the country. Klaus also blocked all possible compromises, including a referendum and proposals to get around the deadlocked presidential elections which left the position vacant. He did this supposedly to grant Slovakia's long lasting wishes, but in reality to maximize his own power, to remove any opposition to his Thatcherite policies and to relieve himself of the burden of the poorest third of the country.

This book has a number of weakness. It is not very well written, and Innes is not very good in detailing the complicated proposals in economic reform or national unity and their path. The only primary sources are contemporary newspapers, and there is a certain lack of depth. This is all too common in political scientists and sociologists and it leads to a rather indulgent treatment of Slovak nationalism. The first chapter is a potted summary of Czechoslovakian history until 1989 and there is little critical discussion of the nature of Slovakian national identity. The image of Slovaks to many outsiders is that they are basically more rural, more Catholic, less hip Czechs who speak a slightly different language. Since Slovakia has become more urban and more secular over the past century, what does it mean to be a Slovak? The actual historical details of national consciousness are not really discussed, they are simply assumed. The process as discussed in the brilliant, if flawed works by Linda Colley on Britain and Eugen Weber on French peasants, is not really detailed. One thinks of Drew Gilpin Faust's book on Confederate Nationalism or Gary Cohen's book on nationality in Prague as better examples of analysis.

There is therefore a certain lack of critical rigor in discussing Slovak nationalism. The problem is not that nationalism made the breakup of the country inevitable, but that Slovak Nationalism is not really critiqued clearly. Czech attitudes towards Slovaks are mostly summarized, and mostly at the level of high politics. It is a bit unconvincing to think that the attitudes of Czech dissidents and Czech economic reformers were quite as simple minded as Innes portrays. It is true that Slovaks were not the contented rural hicks who blandly accepted Communism while Czech dissidents heroically suffered. But did the Czechs really believe this self-serving version that Innes imputes to them. Their ideology is never really analyzed. Although Innes provides reams of evidence of Meciar's opportunism, authoritarianism and incompetence she seems to think it condescending of Czechs to point this out. She does not really explain why Slovaks needed a veto over major legislation. Legislation required approval by the Czechoslovak version of a Senate, in which Slovakia had half the seats. Why was that insufficient? Rather than come up with programs that would ensure that Slovakia's historical relative poverty would be compensated, Slovak politician seemed to be more interested over symbols and acquiring power for its own sake. (Would it have killed them to rename the country "the Federal Republic of Czechoslovakia"?) Leading politicians seemed unduly sympathetic to the old Quisling state of Father Tiso. At one point Innes supports one proposal in which the legal continuity of the Czechoslovak state would be abrogated and two nominally independent countries would form a loose federation. Such a move insulted the Czechs, revived fears of Tisoite authoritarianism and led people to assume that Slovak politicians were much more interested in independence than they really were.

There are other weaknesses in the book. There is little discussion of civil society, or the rest of society period. Unions, Churches, Business lobbies, women's groups, how Czechoslovaks actually carried out democratic politics is not really illuminated in a picture of what is largely tedious and unduly complicated high politics. There is no discussion of intermarriage or language. Still the portrait is broadly convincing, and one should read Innes' account of Klaus' brave new Czech Republic, with its corruption and dogmatic refusal of regulation, Klaus' bullying suggestion that all who oppose him are Communists, and some of the lowest voter turnout rates in Europe. The situation in Slovakia is even worse.

Innes' fascinating book seeks to explain why Czechoslovakia split into two states. She shows that whatever else caused the split, it was certainly not re-emergent nationalisms.
The 1989 counter-revolution in Czechoslovakia had led, as counter-revolutions always do, to inflation, unemployment, declining living standards, a collapse in industrial output, worsening health and education systems, corruption and crime, but it had not caused hostilities between Czechs and Slovaks.
Indeed, in Czechoslovakia's June 1992 election, all parties, except the small Slovak National Party, opposed a split, but this election failed to turn public preferences into policy. Two weeks after the election, Vaclav Klaus, the Thatcherite Czech leader, and Vladimir Meciar, the Slovak leader, announced that Czechoslovakia was to be split. Meciar had promised a post-election referendum on the country's future, as required by the constitution, but none was held. President Vaclav Havel, the liberals' hero, failed to defend the constitution. Most of the Czechoslovakian people were opposed to splitting the state: only 16% wanted a split, but nonetheless the Czech working class feebly allowed Klaus and Meciar to split the state.
Innes concludes that the separation "was a process manufactured by a ruthlessly pragmatic Czech right, abetted, when push finally came to shove, by a populist and opportunist Slovak leadership." "Czech and Slovak post-Communist politicians remained not only practically free from public constraint but also distinctly authoritarian in their attitudes towards the state and its purpose - not to mention spectacularly deceitful to their electorates."
Significantly though, Innes does not mention the roles of the EU or of the German Government, which has always wanted to destroy a united Czechoslovakia, although she notes in passing that the Czech Republic has subsequently 'become a German peninsula'. (Investigating Helmut Kohl's notorious secret funds, and Klaus and Meciar's bank accounts, could be useful.) Nor does she mention the role of the Roman Catholic Church, which has always wanted the land of the Hussites destroyed.
The whole sorry story shows that we cannot rely on the bourgeoisie to keep a country united: the working class must take the responsibility for the continuity and integrity of the nation.

Cuando lei este libro termine de entender mas de las cosas que yo creia saber sobre nuestra cultura y el desarrollo que han logrado los dominicanos en Estados Unidos, Pero mas que todo el aporte cultural que esta comunidad ha sembrado aqui.

Me parece que es un libro educativo, porque precenta la problematica del emigrante, sin importar los origenes, ya que esta tiene una raiz en comun, la cual es la busqueda de oportunidades mas alla de la tierra que nos ha visto nacer... Con el Ejemplo de la comunidad Dominicana se da un fiel ejemplo de lo que es espiritu de lucha de un pueblo por sobrevivir fuera del terron que nos ha de cubrir.

I am not by temperament a royalist and certainly not a Tory (350 years ago I would have been found - *given the circumstances of the time* - on the side of the Commonwealth, though nearer John Lilburne than Cromwell). So I'm open to persuasion that it might sometimes be worthwhile uprooting old constitutional arrangements in favour of shiny new ones. The French did it at least eight times in the past couple of centuries; still, there might be something to be said for it.

Prof. Haseler starts by observing - I paraphrase - that Monarchy is bad (this applies in particular to the supposedly house-trained British variety, alleged to have been responsible for the decline of the nation to a point where we have only the fourth largest economy in the world and a derisory international presence); on the other hand a Republic is good. This he repeats in different keys, pointing out inter alia that there is no such thing as Englishness, let alone Britishness, but that will be no problem once we come into the EU apotheosis (what would God's Englishman or even Freeborn John have thought of that?). He goes on repeating it for 200 pages.

Am I persuaded by any of this? No. To be blunt, things have changed in the ten years since the book was written, and some of the Prof's strictures now look quaint. The British polity has its problems, but the monarchy is the least of them (the exact opposite of 350 years ago). The moral is: if it ain't broke, don't write a book on how to fix it. Sorry if I sound flippant, but the republican movement will have to do better than this if it wants my vote.

Ignore the picture on the cover. This is NOT a "Diana" book and it was written years before she died.

This is an extremely well-written critique of the institution of the British monarchy and it's survival to the present day at the heart of a supposedly democratic system of government. It's author is a Professor of Government Studies and also chair-person of Republic (the UK Republican Society).

The book systematically demolishes traditional arguments put forward by royalist constitutional experts, and clearly puts forward the case for a smooth transition to republican government under a written constitution when the present Queen's reign comes to an end. It attempts to explain the failure of the short-lived republic which followed Britain's 17th century revolution, and exposes the negative influence of the monarchy on the nation's social, political and economic well-being.

Although it is now several years old, it is still a very important book for anyone in Britian interested in constitutional reform. It is also good reading for Americans who come to Britain as tourists and think that the monarchy is cute, quaint and entertaining. The monarchy is none of those things. It's power, although cloaked in the language of democracy is still real and threatening.

If you are looking for backgrounder on the people, geography, and history of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, this book may fit your needs. As a general travel guide, it misses the mark badly.

First, the positives. The book provides 150 pages of concise overview. The history section is particularly successful. With an investment of about 90 minutes of reading, you come away with a reasonable understanding of how these two nations arrived at their modern condition, and in particular why they are quite different from one another. The photography in this section and throughout the book is superb and inspirational.

Now, the bad news. As a practical travel guide, information is consistently lacking or just plain wrong. A few examples (there are many more)...

1. Want to know what time it is when you arrive in the DR? This book will tell you you're in the Eastern Time zone. (False - you are one hour ahead).

2. Want to know how much cash you'll need at the airport? This book correctly informs you of the $10 tourist card you must purchase on arrival but utterly fails to mention the $10 departure tax.

3. Want to do a little exploring on the Costa del Coco north of Punta Cana? This book will treat you to purple passages like "the charter meccas are left behind glinting like shiny oyster pearls in the sun...", then toss out the names of a few beaches you could have located on the map, and provide absolutley no additional information.

In short, you might find this book useful for some inspiration in planning your trip, but don't expect to rely on it for practical information once you're on site.

I bought this book, not as a travel guide, but as a "coffee-table book" about the country of Haiti. As such, it is FANTASTIC! Sure, there are some typos in this first edition, but the publisher specifically invites readers' contributions & corrections (p. 2) for future editions. The photos in this book are vivid, stunning depictions of life in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. There is an introductory section full of photos & illustrations that covers the history of both nations that comprise Hispaniola, followed by colorful, photo-filled sections on people, language, art, religion, cuisine, sports, flora & fauna, architecture, economy & agriculture, geography & demography by regions of each country (including a wide variety of detailed maps), sites to visit and sights to see. All this comprises the first 344 pages of this marvelous book! Only the last 48 pages are devoted to "Travel Tips" -- trip planning, transportation, places to stay, places to eat, tourist sites, shopping, festivals, excursions, and so forth. Indeed, this is NOT A TRAVEL GUIDE! BUT A MARVELOUS AND DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO THE RICH CULTURE, BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE, AND INTRIGUING HISTORY OF THE ISLAND OF HISPANIOLA it is!!

The author discusses the history of Central Asia in a generally thorough and workmanlike manner which is fitting given her background of study of the area. I am glad to see she discusses the Turkistan Republic which was a short-lived Muslim republic that briefly existed during the time of the Soviet civil war of 1918-1921. When it comes to historical sources, the author's research is fine. When it comes to discussing discussing the politics of the region today and the role of the Islamic Republic of Iran (and Foreign Minister Velayati) I think she omits or is totally unaware of important facts and as a result, downplays Iran's (and now Turkey's) role and influence in the region. There are two conceivable reasons for this omission. Either the author has a hidden agenda to prove her point that political Islam is not a major political force in the region (which I think it is) or the author genuinely suffers from a lack of good intelligence sources about recent diplomatic and foreign policy developments in the region. I think the latter is more likely since the author's footnotes and citations indicate only marginal support from those who would be in a position to brief her on recent activities on the part of Iran in that region of the world. Hers is the classic book by someone with a generally sound academic bent and background who doesn't know of anyone in the State Department or CIA who can tell her what is really going on out there. If fundamentalist Islam is not a vibrant political force, why for example, did four Central Asian republic recently ban the activities of the Islamic Rennaisance Party because of its tremendous electoral strength? - a rhetorical question..

Haghayeghi has written a very nice book on the subject of Islam's role in the politics and economics of Central Asia. The son of a general to the Shah of Iran and a twenty-year resident of the United States, Haghayeghi certainly has the basis of knowledge to write a factual yet objective book on the subject. A great read for anyone wanting to know more about the region.

While Dr. Jasephson's compilation of information on Soviet nuclear research and developement is encyclopedic, the book is not easy to follow. It repeatedly jumps back to various points, the Russian revolution, early post WW II era and follows another area of the soviet nuclear program. Early in the book an unfamiliar unit of exposure, the "ber" is used but not defined. It is not a unit used at all in this country. In later chapters a definite anti-nuclear bias gets in the way of providing information. While Dr. Josephson is entitled to his view point, it would be more effectively communicated if he had a better understanding of the field.

An example, in discussing the Chernobyl disaster he says, "For days after the explosion, people continued to drink and consume the local water, juice, sausages and cucumbers, all of which had been irradiated." Having something irradiated is not the same as having it contaminated with radioactive material [fallout]. Although some are concerned about food irradiation which may be done to prevent spoilage, extend shelf life, and prevent food poisoning it is not at all the same as having food contaminated by radioactive material. Because he gives so little details in such tidbits it is impossible to tell if he means contaminated or irradiated.

Dr. Josephson gives many such alarming tid bits, in the last two chapters and epilog, without explaining the nature or level of whatever problem he is discussing. In the example the level of contamination, if that is meant, microcuries per gram or kilogram and applicable, acceptable levels would have defined the problem or if irradiation was meant, the dose food stuffs received would have been helpful. But such details are almost always missing and in some cases as in the example, incorrectly given or there is confusion in what he presents.

It has been my impression that Soviet nuclear research and development had many problems but this book did not illuminate them as I expected.

A very disappointing book.

I found Mr. Josephson's book to be highly entertaining and an extremely good read. Lots and lots and lots of information - maybe, sometimes too much. However, I noticed a number of errors, which, although slight, did jump out at me.

Mr. Josephson seems to like inserting a slight dusting of Russian terms in his book which are tangential to the subject at hand and, in several instances, are mistranslated. Two instances that immediately come to mind are his translating of "bakon" as pork fat, when, in fact, it IS bacon. "Sala" is what Mr. Josephson was probably referring to. A second is his translation of the word "spetzodezhda" as a hermetically sealed suit used in the maintenance of a reactor. "Spetzodezhda" is merely work clothing - of any form.

I also found the author's use of both imperial and metric measurements to be somewhat confusing and that required me to switch gears too frequently - sometimes in the same paragraph.

Two other errors that I'm surprised were not spotted in the proofreading are the placing of words starting with "dn" after words starting with "do" in the index and his comment on page 288 that the Latvians at the Ignalina reactor were unhappy about the number of Russians working at the reactor. Ignalina is in Lithuania. Perhaps the Latvians working there were distressed about the high number of Russians at the plant- but I assume that the native Lithuanians were even more distressed.

This is a fascinating and frightening account of a huge story. It covers (often in excessive detail) the development of nuclear power under a totalitarian regime with little thought for the human cost. An excellent book overall.

The story he tells must be told. Uncounted innocent citizens of the region are still suffering from the careless application of nuclear power, and even today the development and construction of new reactors continues. The world must be made aware of the cost of continuing to ignore the deteriorating situation in the former Soviet bloc.

On the down side, Josephson's style is rambling, with excessive detail which does not add to the overall message. Even with a reasonable knowledge of the geography of the former Soviet Union and some of the people involved, I found it quite hard to follow.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is specifically interested in Soviet history or the history of Nuclear power. Others may find it tough going.

The A10 Warthog was manufactured by Fairchild Republic. Without the Fairchild Aircraft Company, there would not have been a A10.......so why in the world would you title it the Republic's A10... where in the world do you get your information ?

This follows the typical pattern of Don's books, with lots of colour photos of squadron aircraft - mainly taken on operational pans. Excellant, if you want a central reference for the colours and markings for the aircraft.

This is the best book on the A-10 I've ever seen. It is packed full of info, lots of stuff that you couldn't find elswhere. Its has full listings of squadrons, inluding ANG and AFRE. Its only downside is that over half the pictures are squadron pics, which show an A-10 on the ground, doing nothing. Overall this book is great for any A-10 anthusiest.