"This is not a Politburo, but a madhouse," The post World War II Sovietization of East Germany up to the 1953 worker's uprising.
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Beria - My Father : Inside Stalin's Kremlin
For almost 20 years two men from Georgia dominated the Russians and its empire: Stalin and Beria as head of what was to become the KGB. This book is a memoir of daily life with these two men who sent millions to their graves. It vividly paints Stalin's increasingly psychotic nature and the dread that pervaded everyone's life, even that of Beria, but also the incomprehensible loyalty that Stalin inspired among women such as the author's mother, also a Georgian. It also contains Sergio's anecdotes like the time he was chased by Svetlana, Stalin's nymphomaniac daughter. Upon Stalin's mysterious death, Beria dramatically lost the struggle for power with Khrushchev, a Russian, who murdered him with the aid of his fellow politburo members. This book shows what it was like to grow up at the top in a duplicitous and deeply immoral and violent atmosphere.
The Prince and His Art of War: Machiavelli’s Military Populism
In chapter XIV of The Prince, Machiavelli warns present and prospective princes not to neglect the art of war and to be a “professore di questa arte.” By exhorting the prince to be an expert in the art of war, this passage establishes the paradigmatic status of the arte della guerra for the arte dello stato. But what precisely is this art of war, which the prince is supposed to master? In order to answer this question, I offer a new interpretation of Machiavelli’s dialogue on military affairs, the Art of War. My essay casts Machiavelli’s politics-war nexus in a fresh light that emphasizes soldiers’ bodies and practices and highlights the popular dimension of Machiavelli’s militia. In contrast to The Prince, where military troops are typically described as a (potentially treacherous) tool of the prince, Art of War figures the popular army as dynamic political and social force and a potential catalyst for popular revolt and upheaval.