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A review by alexgmcm
Red Plenty by Francis Spufford
2.0
Writing it in the form of a novel seems a bizarre choice and ultimately the book never seemed to answer what it purported to investigate:
We know that the USSR had believed they could surpass the USA - so what went wrong? Why did Cybernetics, a planned economy etc. all fail?
The closest thing to answers were brief mentions of a lack of investment in the Soviet computing industry (they chose instead to copy IBM machines) and a lack of confidence in letting computers control pricing instead of committees.
It's a shame I had hoped for a more in-depth exploration and explanation of the issues. Some of the writing is good though and I learned some interesting stuff about the USSR.
We know that the USSR had believed they could surpass the USA - so what went wrong? Why did Cybernetics, a planned economy etc. all fail?
The closest thing to answers were brief mentions of a lack of investment in the Soviet computing industry (they chose instead to copy IBM machines) and a lack of confidence in letting computers control pricing instead of committees.
It's a shame I had hoped for a more in-depth exploration and explanation of the issues. Some of the writing is good though and I learned some interesting stuff about the USSR.