Anatol Lieven - Böcker

DAILY TELEGRAPH and INDEPENDENT BOOKS OF THE YEARLONGLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE 20122011 LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE FINALISTIn the wake of Pakistan's development of nuclear weapons, unpoliceable border areas, shelter of the Afghan Taliban and Bin Laden, and the spread of terrorist attacks by groups based in Pakistan to London, Bombay and New York, there is a clear need to look further than the simple image of a failed state so often portrayed in the media, and to see instead a country of immense complexity and importance.Lieven's profound and sophisticated analysis paves the way for clearer understanding of this remarkable and highly contradictory country.

'This is one of those rare books that have something really important to say. Anatol Lieven is telling his fellow realists that at this moment the world's great powers are far more threatened by climate change than they are by each other' Ivan Krastev, author of The Light That FailedIn the past two centuries we have experienced wave after wave of overwhelming change. Entire continents have been resettled; there are billions more of us; the jobs done by countless people would be unrecognizable to their predecessors; scientific change has transformed us all in confusing, terrible and miraculous ways.Anatol Lieven's major new book provides the frame that has long been needed to understand how we should react to climate change. This is a vast challenge, but we have often in the past had to deal with such challenges: the industrial revolution, major wars and mass migration have seen mobilizations of human energy on the greatest scale. Just as previous generations had to face the unwanted and unpalatable, so do we.In a series of incisive, compelling interventions, Lieven shows how in this emergency our crucial building block is the nation state. The drastic action required both to change our habits and protect ourselves can be carried out not through some vague globalism but through maintaining social cohesion and through our current governmental, fiscal and military structures.This is a book which will provoke innumerable discussions.

American policies, the American economy, and the health of the American political system are all of crucial importance to the world - and to other Western democracies in particular. Yet in recent years, the American political scene has become increasingly radicalized, embittered, and polarized - contributing to a near-paralysis of economic policy and intense partisanship concerning relations with the rest of the world. In this essential guide to the present state of US politics, renowned commentator Anatol Lieven pin-points American nationalism as the key to explaining the present troubles in America's body politic. Delving deep into the cultural and historical roots of the phenomenon, Lieven portrays American nationalism as a highly complex mixture of different elements which are sometimes opposed to each other, and sometimes intertwined. On the one hand, there is the core tradition of American civic nationalism based on the universalist 'American Creed' of almost religious reverence for American democratic institutions and the U.S. constitution. On the other, there exists a chauvinist nationalism which holds that these institutions are underpinned by cultural values which belong only to certain Americans, and which is strongly hostile both to foreigners and to minorities in America which are felt not to share those values.In this updated edition of his classic study, Anatol Lieven traces the re-emergence of radical strains of American nationalism in recent years, manifested in the rise of the Tea Party movement and the ongoing radicalization of the Republican Party. He attributes this to a combination of the effects of 9/11, the influence of the alliance with Israel, and above all, the long-term and increasing economic decline of large sections of the white middle classes. Deprived by nationalist ideology of the ability to explain what is happening to them in rational terms, many of these people are now turning to ideologies and demonologies that contribute greatly to the paralysis of effective government in what remains the world's most powerful and important country.

World attention has focused on the newly independent Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania, as they struggle to become politically and economically viable. In this timely book, Anatol Lieven presents an intimate and engaging portrait of the history and culture of the Baltic states from their ancient origins to their contemporary status. He explores the culture and personality of the Baltic peoples, their religious and racial differences, their relations with Russia and with the West, and their prospects for the future. Lieven begins by describing the ancient Baltic peoples, their conquest by the Christians, the evolution of the Lithuanian empire and their union with Poland, and the experience of the Baltic provinces under the Russian Empire. He then looks at the countries' first struggle for independence in 1918, the failure of democracy and the establishment of authoritarian regimes, and the Soviet annexation of the Baltic in 1940. Lieven discusses the class structure of the Baltics and the ethnic tensions that have existed between the Germans, Jews, Poles, and Russians who live there. Drawing on a wide range of sources including interviews, newspaper accounts, and his own observations, he describes and analyzes the rise of national movements in each of the three countries after Glastnost. He concludes by discussing the new constitutions and the elections of 1992, the current forces of order, the demolition of the Soviet economies, and the possibilities for democracy and Europeanization or for ethnic conflict and nationalist dictatorship.

The war between Russia and the Chechen separatist forces, from December 1994 to August 1996, was a key moment in Russian and even world history, shedding a stark light on the end of Russia as a great military and imperial power. Anatol Lieven, a distinguished writer and political commentator, was a correspondent for the London Times in the former Soviet Union from 1990 to 1996 and was commended for his coverage of the Chechen War by the British Press Association.In this major new work of history and analysis, Lieven sets Russia’s humiliation at the hands of a tiny group of badly organized guerrillas in a plausible framework for the first time. He offers both a riveting eyewitness account of the war itself and a sophisticated and multifaceted explanation for the Russian defeat. Highlighting the numerous ways in which Russian society and culture differ today from the simplistic stereotypes still current in much of Western analysis, he explores the reasons for the current weakness of Russian nationalism both within the country and among the Russian diaspora.In the final part of the book Lieven examines the Chechen tradition, providing the first in-depth anthropological portrait in English of this extraordinary fighting people. In his representation of the character of the Chechen nation, Lieven contributes to the continuing debate between "constructivist" and "primordialist" theories of the origins of nationalism and examines the role of both historical experience and religion in the formation of national identity.