I got (mis)diagnosed with Schizophrenia on 02.04.1997 and I’ve had 26 years of hell in the mental health system here in South Wales ever since. Initially the psychiatrist said it was ‘mild schizophrenia’ whatever that is. I have had over
Continue readingTag: Kremlin
Happy 100th Birthday Henry Kissinger
Henry Kissinger is a political heavyweight. Of that there can be no doubt. Even the harshest of this US politician-come-guru, Henry Kissinger’s critics will have to admit that he is just that – a veteran in the ring of international
Continue readingReview: Defending The Realm – MI5 and The Shayler Affair – by Mark Hollingsworth and Nick Fielding
This is just another one of the many books I’ve read on the security services / spies / intelligence agencies in general. I guess I have a morbid fascination. Non-fiction throws up some pretty weird stuff – Life itself is
Continue readingReview: Red Horizons – The True Story of Nicolae & Elena Ceausescus’ Crimes, Lifestyle, and Corruption – by Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa
I was just chatting away to Ionutz a security nurse in the local mental hospital and he’s Romanian. I passed through Bucharest a few years ago en route to Istanbul on a train journey traversing Eastern Europe. Romania seemed quite
Continue readingReview: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich – by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Under the premiership of Nikita Khrushchev there was a post-Stalin easing of oppression emerging from the Kremlin and a Cold War ‘Victorian’ Ice Age thaw for writers allowed this remarkable, unique, little tale to unbelievably evade the censor and make
Continue readingReview: The Dragons and the Snakes – How The Rest Learned to Fight The West – by David Kilcullen
This is one of the very best books I have ever read. It is up to date material and full of cutting edge military theory and ideas and I believe is critical essential reading for any politician or military personnel,
Continue readingReview: The Dragons and the Snakes – How The Rest Learned to Fight The West – by David Kilcullen
This is one of the very best books I have ever read. It is up to date material and full of cutting edge military theory and ideas and I believe is critical essential reading for any politician or military personnel,
Continue readingReview: Red Notice – How I Became Putin’s No.1 Enemy – by Bill Browder
There is irony in this tale as Bill Browder was following in his grandfather’s footsteps in some ways but was also radically poles apart. Browder’s grandfather had stood for Presidential election in the USA on a Communist ticket. Bill Browder
Continue readingReview: Putin’s People – How the KGB took back Russia and then took on The West – by Catherine Belton
The author of this, the best study of Vladimir Putin that I have read to date, is Catherine Belton, a Financial Times journalist that was based in Moscow. It is a comprehensive study of the rise of Putin and how
Continue readingReview: Fragile Empire – How Russia Fell In and Out of Love with Vladimir Putin – by Ben Judah
This is a very well researched study of Russia under Vladimir Putin. Always concerned with the political angle of this modern day Tsar, Judah studies the rise of Putin from a relatively unflattering career in the FSB through to him
Continue readingReview: Fragile Empire – How Russia Fell In and Out of Love with Vladimir Putin – by Ben Judah
This is a very well researched study of Russia under Vladimir Putin. Always concerned with the political angle of this modern day Tsar, Judah studies the rise of Putin from a relatively unflattering career in the FSB through to him
Continue readingReview: The New Cold War – by Edward Lucas
The New Cold War by Edward Lucas My rating: 4 of 5 stars This book is a study of Russia in the post-communist era. It documents the rise of Vladimir Putin and identifies the ‘new cold war’ that envelopes Russia’s
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