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.
Index
A
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
international reputation