Reviews tagging 'Pregnancy'

A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal by Ben Macintyre

1 review

librarymouse's review

adventurous informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

Kim Philby's life and crimes frame an interesting intersection between ideology and identity that I've seen in my more volatile and conservative contemporaries. To be willing to knowingly orchestrates the deaths of possibly thousands of people for the sake of an ideology he'd most likely never read the foundational texts for even when the government who employed him began working with the third Reich, and his seeming need to collect and maintain friendships while actively betraying said friends marks Kim Philby as a fundamentally broken person. Blind loyalty is something terrible. Nicholas Elliott and the other of Philby's peers whose lives are explored in this book are interesting characters from a bygone era. The storytelling of this book makes them out to be empathetic characters. The afterword and the quotes direct from Elliott, in which he maintains that stiff upper lip and avoids the expression of emotion somewhat damage that image, in spite of it being expected.

The fact that the sanctity and safety of countries were left in the hands of their respective old boys clubs is upsetting, though not unexpected. The lack of security among exclusive upper class society is astounding.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Misogyny, Alcohol, Colonisation, Fire/Fire injury, Infidelity, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Alcoholism, Death, Toxic relationship, War, Classism, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Medical trauma, Self harm, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Terminal illness, Antisemitism, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Genocide

Minor: Animal death and Pregnancy