October 6, 2006
Back in the USSR
Given all the terrible things that the US government is doing at home and abroad, it's easy to lose perspective — particularly for Americans. To despair or, perhaps more accurately, to despair for the wrong reasons. Dr. Kate Brown, a stunningly brilliant historian (her book A Biography Of No Place won the 2004 George Louis Beer Prize from the American Historical Association) helps us regain perspective by making comparisons to the former USSR, of which there turn out to be many. It's well worth being reminded that such a system inevitably collapses, though how it collapses may be an open question. And specifically, though we can't (yet) get into the secret US prison system, NKVD and KGB documents regarding the Soviet Gulag tell us a lot about what we could expect to find. I'm very grateful to Kate for talking with me. I enjoyed this conversation immensely and I love her Chicago accent. Runtime here of about an hour and eleven minutes. Enjoy!
Comments
Dr. Brown's insightful interview was very revealing. She concluded very correctly (being a scholar and a well-respected historian) that our political and social system has great resemblance to the Soviets of the communist era. Interestingly, the pillars of their political establishment started to crumble and as we all know, eventually imploded. The same analogy is applicable to the current American political system. She is one of the very few historians that refer to the inevitable "Fall of the American Empire". A lot of scholars shy away from "Imperialism" and consider it a myth propagandized by the communist think tanks. But your guest very intelligently labelled our government as an Imperialist. Or maybe I misunderstood her and I was hallucinating!
Great interview, George! Keep enlightening us.
Posted by: Mike B. | October 8, 2006 6:51 AM