Stevenglubbers's Reviews > Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis

Vanity publication. Ramblings of a marque name with a massive ego ["Instead, this is a book expected to remain in print for many decades." p.17]. Desperately in need of an editor to sharpen the prose and the arguments. The Third Chimpanzee was one of the most rewarding reads I've ever had as it exposed me to new ideas and areas of study. Picking this one up based on the known name left me severely, severely disappointed at the laziness involved in this whole project.

p.147 "My understanding of Allende is based on the recollections of a Chilean friend of mine who knew him..." Ugh

Flip the page for him to assume his audience is a group of idiots and "his younger readers" won't understand why the 1960s saw people opposed to Marxists. Not to fear, he explains it to them in a few quick sentences: "The explanation begins with the fact that, after WWII, the Soviet Union embarked on a policy of world domination and developed its own atomic bombs, hydrogen bombs, and intercontinental missiles...After the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviet Union responded by accelerating its programs to develop more powerful nuclear weapons and intercontinental missiles". History is so easy to explain! See kids? The Soviet Union had bombs and missiles [and then better bombs and missiles] so people were afraid of leftist governments in Chile!

Hachette saw a chance to earn $$ by slapping a marque name onto the sweeping generalizations, simplifications and personal musings of an old ego. (And sadly, they were right. The same publishing concept that brought us Pioneers by David McCullough)

Cool dude - so you speak 6 languages, know people, and have Japanese cousins in the family you recently married into. You should go have coffee with Thomas Friedman and check if you've both had the same taxi driver at some point.

The project can best be summarized in his own words on p. 14. "I had initially hoped to incorporate modern quantitative methods into this book. I devoted months to that effort, only to reach the conclusion that it would have to remain a task for a separate future project." Translation: I had initially hoped to make this a serious work, but a few months in I gave up and just sent my publisher this slapdash, lazy effort.

Pass on this one.