Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2238013 in Books
• Published on: 1990-11-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 574 pages

Customer Reviews

Everything you'll need to know about leftist hypocrites
I read this book on a suggestion from an Economics professor at George Masoh University. I was doing some research about some American views of the Soviet Union while Stalin was murdering his people and my professor enlightened me towards this incredible read. It was indeed a hard book to come across, mine was the only school in the entire Metropolitan DC area to hold this. So, I considered myself lucky. And after reading with passion every single word, I now consider myself educated. For those who are fans of George Bernard Shaw, read this at your own peril. While Mr. Shaw was bordering a train heading into the Soviet Union, he threw all his food on the roadside in Poland, in belief that food in the USSR was readily available. Indeed, it was for him and the other Americans the Russians wanted to use to spread their Communist propaganda, but little did these utopian-minded citizens know, millions upon millions were being murdered right under their noses in this great utopia. Of course murder didn't stop these peaceful leftists from looking at the grim realities of life under socialism. They still found ways in which to exalt the virtues of government planned society. After the guilt overcame them in regards to the murders of Stalin, they took to Cuba. Unfortunately for them, same game plan under Castro, same result, millions of innocents dead. Realizing Cuba was not the great utopia, these American leftists took to China and Mao. AHHHH? If only these people would live the "true" socialist way. If only socialism was allowed to flourish in its true nature, with peace and love for everyone. A few peiple get murdered along the way? Its too bad but the good of the nation is more important. Hollander outlines this perfectly. Three cheers for him and for the people who have the guts to read this wonderful book.

An old-fashioned, reactionary piece of tosh
Hollander's book is very famous within academic circles and is assured of classic status - largely, I assume, because no-one else ever wrote a book on the subject. If only they had! The subject of 'Political Pilgrims' is indeed fascinating and the book has value for it's wealth of good anecdote (hence deserving one star). However, Hollander's critique is so one-sided and devoid of insight that the many, many pages of argument shouldering these anecdotes become a painful struggle of repetitive prose and simple-mindedness. When he moves on from the Soviet Union to more recent travels to communist states he becomes simply inaccurate - his notorious attack on Ben Kiernan as a denier of genocide in Cambodia, for example. (Ben Kiernan is author of 'The Pol Pot Regime' - a book that is very far from holocaust denial). In all his tiresome travails Hollander never makes any attempt to actually understand, rather than simply insult, the people he writes about. He denounces and ridicules his characters' support of left-wing states without ever questioning why they disliked his own so much - (he is, very obviously, an American). The end result is rather like reading the rantings of an armchair traveller, envious of others' travels and hating them for it.