Brad’s Reviews > The Age of Extremes, 1914-1991 > Status Update
Brad
is on page 286 of 627
"The shift in labour's mood was far more significant than the great burst of student unrest in and around 1968...Its cultural significance was far greater than its political significance."
"So 1968 was neither an end nor a beginning, but only a signal. Unlike the wage explosion, the collapse [Bretton Woods]...it does not figure much in the explanation of economic historians about the end of the Golden Age."
— Aug 05, 2025 12:33PM
"So 1968 was neither an end nor a beginning, but only a signal. Unlike the wage explosion, the collapse [Bretton Woods]...it does not figure much in the explanation of economic historians about the end of the Golden Age."
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Brad
is on page 543 of 627
"There is scarcely a scientific axiom that is not nowadays denied by somebody. And at the same time almost any nonsensical theory would be almost sure to find believers and disciples somewhere or other." - Max Planck, 1933
Well damn.
— Aug 08, 2025 09:02PM
Well damn.
Brad
is on page 504 of 627
"The USSR remained culturally fallow, at least in comparison with its pre-1917 glories."
"The light shining out of Communist China in the arts remained dim."
Yikes, some major Eurocentric pompousness. Kristen Ghodsee had some similar critiques of the Soviet system (particularly during the 30s/40s), but it's possible to have those and still recognize artistic merit.
— Aug 08, 2025 01:03PM
"The light shining out of Communist China in the arts remained dim."
Yikes, some major Eurocentric pompousness. Kristen Ghodsee had some similar critiques of the Soviet system (particularly during the 30s/40s), but it's possible to have those and still recognize artistic merit.
Brad
is on page 481 of 627
"It is an interesting sign of the interpenetration of official reformers and dissident thinking in the Brezhnev years, that glasnost was what the writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn had called for in his open letter to the Congress of the Union of Soviet writers in 1967, before his expulsion from the USSR."
Interesting indeed.
— Aug 08, 2025 10:48AM
Interesting indeed.
Brad
is on page 480 of 627
"The aims of Communist economic reformers since the 1950s had been to make the centrally planned command economies more rational and flexible by the introduction of market pricing and calculations of profit and loss in enterprises."
This was *one path* put forward. Another group put hopes in the field of cybernetics, and linear programming. See my reviews of "Balkan Cyberia" and Kantorovich.
— Aug 07, 2025 06:30PM
This was *one path* put forward. Another group put hopes in the field of cybernetics, and linear programming. See my reviews of "Balkan Cyberia" and Kantorovich.
Brad
is on page 400 of 627
"It remained a police state, an authoritarian society and...an unfree one."
"In all these respects [i.e. freedom of travel and speech] the USSR remained distinctly inferior to Tsarist Russia."
"Unlike the USSR, the USA was a democracy."
Some nuggets of conventional rhetorical wisdom from this brick of a book. Sigh.
— Aug 06, 2025 04:32PM
"In all these respects [i.e. freedom of travel and speech] the USSR remained distinctly inferior to Tsarist Russia."
"Unlike the USSR, the USA was a democracy."
Some nuggets of conventional rhetorical wisdom from this brick of a book. Sigh.
Brad
is on page 281 of 627
"The most convenient world for multinational giants is one populated by dwarf states or no states at all."
— Aug 05, 2025 12:02PM
Brad
is on page 257 of 627
Some good, some cringe. Maybe not a go-to read when you're overtired.
Not feeling the hype, but gonna see this one through.
— Aug 04, 2025 06:41PM
Not feeling the hype, but gonna see this one through.
Brad
is on page 214 of 627
"The 1930s were, therefore, a crucial decade for the Third World, not so much because the Slump led to political radicalization but rather because it established contact between the politicized minorities and the common people of their countries."
— Aug 04, 2025 11:21AM
This was written in the 90s. In the wake of the 2008 crisis and later impacts of COVID...the critique here of short-term view rationalization of crises (emphasis on unique factors i.e. specific financial manipulations, COVID lockdowns) next to an apparent pattern of Kondratiev waves is some food for thought.