Posted on 12/07/2003 12:13:50 PM PST by billorites
Professor Richard Pipes will be on C-SPAN's Booknotes tonight, 8:00pm EST, with host Brian Lamb. Pipes will be discussing his new book Vixi: Memoirs of a Non-Belonger.
Distinguished historian, Harvard professor, and White House adviser looks back on his own life and on the tumultuous twentieth century.
Sixteen-year-old Richard Pipes escaped from Nazi-occupied Warsaw with his family in October 1939. Their flight took them to the United States by way of Italy, and Pipes went on to earn a college degree, join the U.S. Air Corps, serve as professor of Russian history at Harvard for nearly forty years, and become adviser to President Reagan on Soviet and Eastern European affairs. In this engrossing book, the eminent historian remembers the events of his own remarkable life as well as the unfolding of some of the twentieth century’s most extraordinary political events.
From his youthful memories of bombs falling on Warsaw to his recollections of the conflicts inside the Reagan administration over American policies toward the USSR, Pipes offers penetrating observations as well as fascinating portraits of such cultural and political figures as Isaiah Berlin, Ronald Reagan, and Alexander Haig. Perhaps most interesting of all, Pipes depicts his evolution as a historian and his understanding of how history is witnessed and how it is recorded.
“Mr. Pipes has had a long and distinguished life and career, and he has made distinctive and important contributions to both scholarship and public policy. He has much of interest to tell, particularly concerning his often contentious involvement with American policy toward the Soviet Union.”--Mark Raeff, Columbia University
A cultured, well-mannered and fascinating man.
One of my college professors was a notorious lefty who made a lot of noise as a conscientious objector in WWII. He was active in every wacky left-wing thing to come down the pike during the 70's when I knew him.
However, he let everything drop when a student darkened his door. I was a non-major, but always remember how respectful he was towards me and how generous he was with his time.
I think about that now when I have the urge to snap at an undergrad.
Read everything he has written and corresponded with him, a scholar of the first water.
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