Grand Strategy of the Soviet Union
Luttwak
1983
Hey, weeding fans: one quick search in any catalog on “Soviet Union” should return a lot of good candidates for weeding. ALB seems to have LOTS to choose from! I loved this title! I wonder if the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was included as part of the “grand strategy”. Maybe the fall of communism is all part of the grand strategy to lull us into complacency! The possibilities are endless!!!
8 responses so far ↓
Slow Joe Crow // June 4, 2009 at 2:41 pm |
As a sometime historian I think that books about the former Soviet Union are worth keeping for historic and historiographical use even if they are no longer “current events”. A book written by a major and controversial figure like Luttwak would be a great source for a research paper.
Thanks for the RSS feed, your site is now part of my morning humor run.
hhibner // June 4, 2009 at 5:29 pm |
Maybe at some point a “historical” sticker could be added to books like this that are worth keeping, but obviously not current.
Andrea // June 5, 2009 at 4:30 pm |
or perhaps part of the librarian’s job is to help people understand that paying attention to the date is important when doing research and that the date’s significance varies for different types of research?
Mike Fourcher // June 30, 2009 at 10:27 pm |
I read this book back when it came out. It actually was a pretty good read. Luttwak is a pretty solid strategist and this book made his career.
CrapBlog // July 14, 2009 at 3:49 am |
Mike Fourcher is correct. Luttwak is considered one of the world’s leading strategists and military historians; although, when he steps outside of this area he can be a bit bombastic e.g. journalism.
Anyway, the writer of this blog is a douchebag. The posts here pretty much amount to “LOLdumbPeopleFromThePastAMIRITE?”
This is why you are librarians, and not something that demands any sort of introspection and thought.
Cassie // July 30, 2009 at 12:36 am |
If comments on this site are moderated, how did this one end up posted?
And isn’t the idea of the site more to find humor in what today’s libraries have or still have on their shelves than to say there was anything wrong with the books when they were new? The site is about weeding. Weeding is about moving out the antiques on the shelves to be replaced by currently relevant material.
Mushroom // July 22, 2009 at 2:41 pm |
No, what does it for me is that the font used on the cover of the book so closely resembles that used for Leon Uris’ novels. Dramatic and bold and foreboding. YOU WILL BE INVADED, YANKS. (Granted, that same font was used for the Wallaces’ Book Of Lists series, which isn’t as scary.)
Daniel Walfield // August 12, 2009 at 3:09 pm |
I find this particularly amusing because I go to George Washington University, the site of a since replaced Institute for Sino-Soviet Studies. Our library still has many of the old books, and the FBIS transcripts, but really only Cold War historians actually read any of the sources. Public libraries ought to have a few history books on the USSR, but the late 80s atlases and political treatises need to go.