After the Fall
Being American in the World We've Made
(Sprache: Englisch)
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Vital reading for Americans and people anywhere who seek to understand what is happening after the fall of the global system created by the United States (New York Journal of Books), from the former White House aide, close...
lieferbar
versandkostenfrei
Buch (Gebunden)
34.50 €
17 DeutschlandCard Punkte
sammeln
- Lastschrift, Kreditkarte, Paypal, Rechnung
- Kostenlose Rücksendung
Produktdetails
Produktinformationen zu „After the Fall “
Klappentext zu „After the Fall “
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Vital reading for Americans and people anywhere who seek to understand what is happening after the fall of the global system created by the United States (New York Journal of Books), from the former White House aide, close confidant to President Barack Obama, and author of The World as It Is At a time when democracy in the United States is endangered as never before, Ben Rhodes spent years traveling the world to understand why. He visited dozens of countries, meeting with politicians and activists confronting the same nationalism and authoritarianism that are tearing America apart. Along the way, he discusses the growing authoritarianism of Vladimir Putin, and his aggression towards Ukraine, with the foremost opposition leader in Russia, who was subsequently poisoned and imprisoned; he profiled Hong Kong protesters who saw their movement snuffed out by China under Xi Jinping; and America itself reached the precipice of losing democracy before giving itself a fragile second chance.
The characters and issues that Rhodes illuminates paint a picture that shows us where we are today from Barack Obama to a rising generation of international leaders; from the authoritarian playbook endangering democracy to the flood of disinformation enabling authoritarianism. Ultimately, Rhodes writes personally and powerfully about finding hope in the belief that looking squarely at where America has gone wrong can make clear how essential it is to fight for what America is supposed to be, for our own country and the entire world.
Lese-Probe zu „After the Fall “
7The House of Soviets
For much of the twenty-first century, Russia has led the counterrevolution to American domination not by seeking to upend the global order that America constructed, but rather by disrupting it from within, turning it (and ultimately America itself) into the ugliest version of itself. I think of how Russians must have seen us Americans as I was growing up: capitalist stooges, driven entirely by a lust for profit; a militarized empire, unconcerned with the lives of the distant people harmed by our foreign policies; racist hypocrites, preaching human rights abroad and practicing systemic oppression at home. That s the America that Putin wants the world to see, and that s the America that Putin wants us to be.
Think about it. Isn t that what you would want for someone that humiliated you? For them to be revealed, before the world, as the worst version of themselves? By doing so, Putin leveled the playing field the world is what it is, a hard place in which might makes right, capitalism is as fungible as Communism, and a ruthless Russia will always have to be treated with the respect that it was denied after the wall came crashing down.
The city of Kaliningrad is one of those oddities of history, traded back and forth between empires and nation-states, swapping languages and ethnic majorities, caught in the shifting currents of history. Nestled between Poland and Lithuania along the Baltic Sea, it used to be the German city of Königsberg even though it didn t border Germany. After its brutal conquest by the Red Army, the city was renamed, Stalin repopulated it with Russians, and Kaliningrad served as the home for the Soviet Baltic fleet during the Cold War (as well as the home for some unverifiable number of nuclear weapons). After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the Russians hung on to Kaliningrad even as neighboring Lithuania became free, leaving the city once again cut off from its nation a part of Russia, two
... mehr
hundred miles from the Russian border. It was this peculiar political identity that drew me there in the summer of 2001 a twenty-three-year-old part-time teacher and graduate student with little idea what I was going to do with the rest of my life.
Before I got to Kaliningrad, I set foot on Russian soil for the first time, traveling through St. Petersburg and then the three Baltic nations, independent states for just a decade. St. Petersburg Putin s hometown seemed to be covered in a layer of dust. The Hermitage held masterpieces on a par with those of any museum in the world, but it lacked what you d take for granted in the West: fresh paint on the walls, central air conditioning, a pristine gift shop. The boulevards were grand, but trash piled up on the sidewalks. In parks, menacing-looking men drank out of tall cans. Even the beer had an edge to it, a higher alcohol content that could more quickly make you forget whatever it was you didn t want to remember. On the train ride out of the country, I fell asleep and my camera was stolen out of my backpack. By contrast, the Baltic capitals were largely refurbished, on their way to becoming newly embraced members of the Western clubs the European Union, NATO. Visiting the Baltics in 2001 was like going to a neighborhood in Brooklyn on the cusp of gentrification.
Kaliningrad, by contrast, felt forgotten by time. The only foreign tourists there other than stray backpackers like me were busloads of Germans, hoping to reconnect with some lost piece of their heritage. They walked in packs, cameras around their necks, the losers of World War II now exponentially wealthier than the Russians who d conquered them and repopulated their city.
Among the low-rise apartment blocks and storefronts, a tower loomed. The House of Soviets was visible from almost all
Before I got to Kaliningrad, I set foot on Russian soil for the first time, traveling through St. Petersburg and then the three Baltic nations, independent states for just a decade. St. Petersburg Putin s hometown seemed to be covered in a layer of dust. The Hermitage held masterpieces on a par with those of any museum in the world, but it lacked what you d take for granted in the West: fresh paint on the walls, central air conditioning, a pristine gift shop. The boulevards were grand, but trash piled up on the sidewalks. In parks, menacing-looking men drank out of tall cans. Even the beer had an edge to it, a higher alcohol content that could more quickly make you forget whatever it was you didn t want to remember. On the train ride out of the country, I fell asleep and my camera was stolen out of my backpack. By contrast, the Baltic capitals were largely refurbished, on their way to becoming newly embraced members of the Western clubs the European Union, NATO. Visiting the Baltics in 2001 was like going to a neighborhood in Brooklyn on the cusp of gentrification.
Kaliningrad, by contrast, felt forgotten by time. The only foreign tourists there other than stray backpackers like me were busloads of Germans, hoping to reconnect with some lost piece of their heritage. They walked in packs, cameras around their necks, the losers of World War II now exponentially wealthier than the Russians who d conquered them and repopulated their city.
Among the low-rise apartment blocks and storefronts, a tower loomed. The House of Soviets was visible from almost all
... weniger
Autoren-Porträt von Ben Rhodes
Ben Rhodes is the author of the New York Times bestseller The World as It Is, co-host of Pod Save the World, a contributor for NBC News and MSNBC, and an adviser to former president Barack Obama.
Bibliographische Angaben
- Autor: Ben Rhodes
- 2021, 384 Seiten, Maße: 16,8 x 24,1 cm, Gebunden, Englisch
- Verlag: Random House
- ISBN-10: 1984856057
- ISBN-13: 9781984856050
- Erscheinungsdatum: 17.07.2021
Sprache:
Englisch
Pressezitat
Praise for The World as It IsA classic coming-of-age story, about the journey from idealism to realism, told with candor and immediacy . . . [Ben Rhodes s] achievement is rare for a political memoir: He has written a humane and honorable book. The New York Times Book Review
More than any other White House memoirist, Rhodes is a creature of the man he served. The New Yorker
Insightful, funny, and moving, this is a beautifully observed, essential record of what it was like to be there. Samantha Power
Kommentar zu "After the Fall"
0 Gebrauchte Artikel zu „After the Fall“
| Zustand | Preis | Porto | Zahlung | Verkäufer | Rating |
|---|
Schreiben Sie einen Kommentar zu "After the Fall".
Kommentar verfassen