Random books from mensheviklibrarian's library

The whole equation : a history of Hollywood by David Thomson

Jefferson Davis and His Generals: The Failure of Confederate Command in the West (Modern War Studies) by Steven E. Woodworth

Mao's Last Revolution by Roderick MacFarquhar

The Road to Verdun by Ian Ousby

Pro Football Prospectus 2006: Statistics, Analysis, and Insight for the Information Age (Pro Football Prospectus) by Aaron Schatz

Lenin by Helene Carrere D'Encausse

Baseball Prospectus 2008: The Essential Guide to the 2008 Baseball Season (Baseball Prospectus) by Steven Goldman

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Friends: akagodsent, garlic, jbetzzall, riurik, sussabmax

Interesting libraries: akagodsent, cedric, Doug1943, garlic, Geoffr, jbetzzall, Medellia, riurik, romanslm, sussabmax

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mensheviklibrarian's reviews

Reviews of mensheviklibrarian's books, not including mensheviklibrarian's

Member: mensheviklibrarian

CollectionsYour library (508), Currently reading (10), To read (3), All collections (508)

Reviews27 reviews

TagsSoviet Union (3), Military History (2), American Politics (2), World War Two (2), Library (2), Benito Mussolini (2), Soviet History (2), 19th Century French History (2), (2), Social History (2) — see all tags

Cloudstag cloud, author cloud

Groups50 Book Challenge, Awful Lit., Board Game Geeks, ISAIAH BERLIN, Librarians who LibraryThing, Love and Death: for Woody Allen fans, Military History, North Carolina LT Group, Political Philosophy, Progressive & Liberal! — show all groups

Favorite authorsT. C. Boyle, Eric Foner, Richard Ford, Jonathan Franzen, Hendrik Hertzberg, E. J. Hobsbawm, Ian Kershaw, Stephen King, Karl Marx, Kurt Vonnegut, David Foster Wallace, Garry Wills (Shared favorites)

About meI'm a 30ish fringe academic (librarian) who is interested in all sorts of high-faluting intellectual conversation about ideas that don't play out well in reality. Of course, using the term "high-faluting" next to intellectual is usually a being self-effacing in a phony way but I'm giving away too much;)
Anyway, I am interested in talking about books, so please feel free to leave comments and contact me.

About my libraryI only have about 15% of my books cataloged and military history and the history of socialism are over represented because, logically enough, I have only done those shelves.
I am also interested in contemporary literary fiction, sabermetics, economic history, The French Revolution, The Russian Revolution, 20th century European history, and much, much more all for the price of a lifetime of reading!
Corny, yes....

My external tagging is pretty elementary right now. I plan on doing some more sophisticated tagging after most of my collection is online.

Real nameErik Sean Estep

LocationGreenville, North Carolina

Emailerik.estepgmail.com

Account typepublic, lifetime

Connection NewsConnection News

URLs http://www.librarything.com/profile/mensheviklibrarian (profile)
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/mensheviklibrarian (library)

Common KnowledgeSeries (52), Awards (167), Characters (485), Places (184)

Member sinceJul 25, 2006

Currently readingBrief Interviews With Hideous Men : Stories by David Foster Wallace
Adventures in Marxism by Marshall Berman
A Multitude of Sins by Richard Ford
Drop City by T.C. Boyle
The Bloody Shirt: Terror After Appomattox by Stephen Budiansky
show all (10)

Most recent activity

mensheviklibrarian added:
Confederate Correspondent by Jacob Nathaniel Raymer

mensheviklibrarian added:
The Great Labor Uprising of 1877 by Philip Sheldon Foner

mensheviklibrarian added:
The American Political Tradition: And the Men Who Made it by Richard Hofstadter

mensheviklibrarian added:
A Decade Of Revolution, 1789-1799. by CRANE. BRINTON

mensheviklibrarian added:
Satan's Silence: Ritual Abuse and the Making of a Modern American Witch Hunt by Michael Snedeker

mensheviklibrarian added:
Robespierre and the French Revolution by J. M. Thompson

I am so glad that you think being called a slacker is encouraging! That's not usually the first thing I say to someone, but you did ask for some tough love, as I recall.

(Sorry, I meant to reply to your comment a long time ago, and just realized that I hadn't!)

posted by sussabmax at 9:59 am (EST) on Apr 21, 2008

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it.

posted by Kunikov at 10:48 pm (EST) on Aug 24, 2007

The Mensheviks were absolutely right, and Martov was the most appealing figure among them. Even Lenin had a soft spot for him unto his last days (as I am sure you know). But, of course, they made a big mistake in letting Lenin hang the "Minorityite" moniker on them. Lenin would never have accepted it, had he been in the minority at the Second Congress.

Interestingly, the issues that split the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks at the time, and which engaged others, like Plekhanov and Trotsky and even the SRs, have arisen again.

Namely, can an economically and socially-backward, but militarily significant, country make the leap to the political institutions and culture of an advanced society in one go, or must it go through stages of development which are necessarily incomplete from the point of view of those who have a certain final stage in mind? (Re-instantiate the variable holding "socialism" with "liberal democracy" of course.)

Now I am not drawing an equals sign between Bolshevism and the Bush Doctrine -- although I know the "neo-cons are just displaced Trotzkyites trying to carry out the Permanent Revolution" trope is popular in certain circles -- but the similarities are impressive.

Which I why I urge my fellow conservatives to read Wolfe's Three Who Made A Revolution to help them understand the problem of creating democracy in the Middle East. In fact it is probably useful for understanding the problem of creating democracy in Russia.

posted by Doug1943 at 2:22 pm (EST) on Jun 5, 2007

Thank you for your thank you, re Isaiah Berlin. I agree with you, a most impressive man, although there are those who denigrate him as a second-rater. I shall now use this comment as an excuse to ask a question I have been wanting to ask ever since I spotted your name a few months ago, namely, Why "Menshevik"? (I have never met a self-described Menshevik, perhaps because I was an adherent of the other half of that split for many years -- although a former wife knew Alec Nove.) And anyway, where are the Russian Mensheviks now that we need them?

posted by Doug1943 at 3:19 pm (EST) on May 31, 2007

You have an awesome collection. Are these all your books or the library's?

posted by McCaine at 7:15 pm (EST) on Feb 2, 2007

Hi Erik Very glad to see that you have joined the ISAIAH BERLIN GROUP.I am not sure what we are going to do with it,I am a big admirer.Looking forward to see more of your books cataloged.

posted by shokatlibrary at 12:05 am (EST) on Jan 12, 2007

Still only one book in common? Time to finish that cataloging! :)

posted by HouseholdOpera at 11:28 am (EST) on Jan 1, 2007

Oh, not at all. I'm glad you found it useful.

posted by chrisbrooke at 6:39 am (EST) on Dec 11, 2006

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