This is one of those times in life when you know important stuff is happening (in Ukraine) and accurate information is hard to come by and things are moving quickly. My response has been to pick up my unread copy of The Man Without A Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin by Masha Gessen.
This book has been on my to read list for a while. Published in 2012 with an updated afterword by Gessen in 2014 I have always been curious what sort of a story Gessen would tell.
it’s odd to read this now because I was alive during the events Gessen attempts to chronicle. It is helping me understand the complex demise of the USSR. At the same time it casts light on living through history as we are now doing.
I have been getting a great deal of reading done. That’s the main reason I haven’t blogged lately.
Eileen and I had a fun chat with Sarah today. It last close to two hours. You might wonder what the heck we talk about but we never fail to find things to discuss even though Sarah inevitably apologizes each week for “babbling.”
Opinion | Putin’s Moves on Ukraine Will Be a Historic Mistake – The New York Times
by Madeline Albright and published Wednesday of this week before Putin attacked Ukraine. She is excellent.
Opinion | Putin’s Moves on Ukraine Will Be a Historic Mistake – The New York Times
Gessen article also published on Wednesday.
Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation by Silvia Federici Amazon
From Wikipedia “Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation is a 2004 book by Silvia Federici. It is among the most important works to explore gender and the family during the primitive accumulation of capital As part of the radical autonomist feminist Marxist tradition, the book offers a critical alternative to Marx’s theory of primitive accumulation.[ Federici argues that the witch hunts served to restructure family relations and the role of women in order to satisfy society’s needs during the rise of capitalism.
I picked up on this book from Roxanne Dunbar-Otyiz’s An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States.