A review by jedwardsusc
1917: Lenin, Wilson, and the Birth of the New World Disorder by Arthur Herman

2.0

2.5 stars. There's an underlying intellectual clumsiness running though this book. The "great men" approach to history always invites some clumsiness, but Herman magnifies the effect by trying to identify every possible correspondence between Lenin and Wilson. I kept expecting him to find evidence that Lenin and Wilson once ate a salad for lunch ON THE SAME DAY...and then attach some significance to this event--most likely involving its anti-capitalist implications.

In short, Herman writes history well, but his history doesn't bear up that well under the weight of his insistent, ideological arguments about capitalism, interventionism, and post-Wilsonian American hegemony.