Recent Reading - 11/23/21
Recent Reading - 11/23/2021 Pick of the week: How China Avoided Soviet-Style Collapse by Adam Tooze The question of why the Soviet Union collapsed, both politically and economically, and why the PRC did not, is undoubtedly complex. Likewise, this article/book review is equally complex (I needed to read it twice to really understand some of the arguments) but well worth a careful read. As a bonus, it has lots of interest jumping-off points, so be prepared to fall down the rabbit-hole. One big takeaway for me is that much of the argument here (and elsewhere) for the USSR's collapse was due to Gorbachev's response to an entrenched and sclerotic bureaucracy, which would necessarily have come to power during the Brezhnev era. I can't recall any notable biographies of Brezhnev though, or any significant analyses of his time in power. Most of what I remember from my Soviet history class ran up through Khrushchev, and then seemed to gloss over the...