In my view, if one hasn't read Robert Conquest's "Harvest Of Sorrow" and "The Great Terror", it's debatable if they should even be calling themselves a conservative. To me, the most amazing thing about Conquest is this: after the fall of the USSR and the opening of the archives, he was rare among historians in revising his work. And he was even rarer in finding that he didn't need much revision at all: Even under the restricted-information climate of the seventies and eighties, he wrote deadly accurate work. (See, "The Great Terror: A Reassessment" -- which, when the publishers quibbled on the title, he suggested could be called "I told you so, you [expletive deleted] fools.")
This, in an era where most "historians" were content to fluff the Soviet dictator du jour.
Sure, it's a digression on this thread, but it's nice to see that being the only Conquest admirer for miles around doesn't mean I'm the only Conquest admirer! I'd say I'm in damned good company.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Since we're both such fans of Conquest, I figured I better check out your FR homepage.
Now my hat's off to you sir for your service in Afghanistan.
I was initially exposed to Harvest of Sorrow after marrying the daughter of a former Ukrainian freedom fighter ( one of
Stepan Bandera's boys) & finding that within the anti-communist Ukrainian diaspora Conquest, for it and his other works, was literally right up there with
Saint Volodymyr as a hero of free Ukraine.
Although you may enjoy this whole
thread, you may especially appreciate this article
Ghosts In The Hills which I linked in my initial comment since it's related to & from the same source as the posted one.
It's the take of one of our boys on serving in Afghanistan & additionally has several nice turns of phrase which you'll likely appreciate as a wordsmith in your own right.
You may also enjoy
this one about the marvelous send off given yesterday to some of our Troops as they departed for their latest tour in Afghanistan.