Americas Rasputin

Download or read book America's Rasputin written by David Milne and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2008-03-04 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Milne's America's Rasputin provides the first major study of the man who pushed two presidents into Vietnam. Walt Rostow's meteoric rise to power—from Flatbush, Brooklyn, to the West Wing of the White House—seemed to capture the promise of the American dream. Hailing from humble origins, Rostow became an intellectual powerhouse: a professor of economic history at MIT and an influential foreign policy adviser to John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Too influential, according to some. While Rostow inspired respect and affection, he also made some powerful enemies. Averell Harriman, one of America's most celebrated diplomats, described Rostow as "America's Rasputin" for the unsavory influence he exerted on presidential decision-making. Rostow was the first to advise Kennedy to send U.S. combat troops to South Vietnam and the first to recommend the bombing of North Vietnam. He framed a policy of military escalation, championed recklessly optimistic reporting, and then advised LBJ against pursuing a compromise peace with North Vietnam. David Milne examines one man's impact on the United States' worst-ever military defeat. It is a portrait of good intentions and fatal misjudgments. A true ideologue, Rostow believed that it is beholden upon the United States to democratize other nations and do "good," no matter what the cost. America's Rasputin explores the consequences of this idealistic but unyielding dogma.

Download or read book Lost Splendor written by Feliks Feliksovich I︠U︡supov (kni︠a︡zʹ) and published by Helen Marx Books. This book was released on 2003 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rasputin's is one of the most famous deaths in history. Now, his assassin's thrilling memoir is finally back in print. Born to great riches in the days before the Russian Revolution, and married to the niece of Czar Nicholas II, Prince Felix Youssoupoff observed at close range the rampant corruption and intrigues of the imperial court, which culminated in the rise to power of the sinister monk Rasputin. In 1916, Prince Felix and several aristocratic cohorts killed Rasputin, which more than any other single event brought about the cataclysmic upheaval of Tsarist Russia.

Download or read book Rasputin written by Douglas Smith and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2016-11-22 with total page 849 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the centenary of the death of Rasputin comes a definitive biography that will dramatically change our understanding of this fascinating figure A hundred years after his murder, Rasputin continues to excite the popular imagination as the personification of evil. Numerous biographies, novels, and films recount his mysterious rise to power as Nicholas and Alexandra's confidant and the guardian of the sickly heir to the Russian throne. His debauchery and sinister political influence are the stuff of legend, and the downfall of the Romanov dynasty was laid at his feet. But as the prizewinning historian Douglas Smith shows, the true story of Rasputin's life and death has remained shrouded in myth. A major new work that combines probing scholarship and powerful storytelling, Rasputin separates fact from fiction to reveal the real life of one of history's most alluring figures. Drawing on a wealth of forgotten documents from archives in seven countries, Smith presents Rasputin in all his complexity--man of God, voice of peace, loyal subject, adulterer, drunkard. Rasputin is not just a definitive biography of an extraordinary and legendary man but a fascinating portrait of the twilight of imperial Russia as it lurched toward catastrophe.

Download or read book The Icarus Syndrome written by Peter Beinart and published by Melbourne Univ. Publishing. This book was released on 2010 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Icarus Syndrome, Peter Beinart tells a tale as old as the Greeks - a story about the seductions of success. Beinart describes Washington on the eve of three wars - World War I, Vietnam and Iraq - three moments when American leaders decided they could remake the world in their image. Each time, leading intellectuals declared that history was over, and the spread of democracy was inevitable. Each time, a president held the nation in the palm of his hand. And each time, a war conceived in arrogance brought untold tragedy. In dazzling colour, Beinart portrays three extraordinary generations: the progressives who took America into World War I, led by Woodrow Wilson, the lonely preacher's son who became the closest thing to a political messiah the world had ever seen. The Camelot intellectuals who took America into Vietnam, led by Lyndon Johnson, who lay awake night after night shaking with fear that his countrymen considered him weak. And George W. Bush and the post-cold war neoconservatives, the romantic bullies who believed they could bludgeon the Middle East and liberate it at the same time. Like Icarus, each of these generations crafted 'wings' - a theory about America's relationship to the world. They flapped carefully at first, but gradually lost their inhibitions until, giddy with success, they flew into the sun. But every era also brought new leaders and thinkers who found wisdom in pain. They reconciled American optimism - our belief that anything is possible - with the realities of a world that will never fully bend to our will. In their struggles lie the seeds of American renewal today. Based on years of research, The Icarus Syndrome is a provocative and strikingly original account of hubris in the American century - and how we learn from the tragedies that result.

Download or read book Rasputin: The Voice of the Dragon written by Mike Mignola and published by Dark Horse Comics. This book was released on 2018-08-07 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the World War II raging, Hellboy's future guardian Trevor Bruttenholm enlists with Britain's Military Intelligence, where he uncovers a collection of strange messages. Believing it to be an occult language, he follows his hunch and is thrown into a world of animated corpses, deadly mystics, and Nazi agents. The treacherous journey leads him face to face with the man who will bring Hellboy to Earth--Rasputin! The two men responsible for Hellboy face off!

Download or read book Rasputin and Alexei written by Greer Firestone and published by America Star Books. This book was released on 2012-07 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world has long been fascinated by the compelling characters and cataclysmic events surrounding the end of the 300 year Romanov dynasty. Alexei carried on his small frame two impossible burdens-heir and hemophiliac. The curse of hemophilia-"The Royal Disease"-the greatest secret of the age The mystical Rasputin-the peasant holy man with the phospherescent eyes-and his mesmerizing influence on the teenage tsarevich. Only Father Gregori could staunch the flow of blood during an attack The four precious Romanov daughters, OTMA: Olga, Tatiana, Marie and Anastasia and their cruel fate WWI, Lenin and the Communist Revolution of 1917 Rasputin and Alexei gives a face and a soul to the teenage Alexei. Taken from first person accounts, Rasputin and Alexei is a novel about a boy whose murder (and that of his family) changed the world.

Download or read book Rasputin's Daughter written by Robert Alexander and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006-01-19 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of the national bestseller The Kitchen Boy comes a gripping historical novel about imperial Russia’s most notorious figure Called “brilliant” by USA Today, Robert Alexander’s historical novel The Kitchen Boy swept readers back to the doomed world of the Romanovs. His latest masterpiece once again conjures those turbulent days in a fictional drama of extraordinary depth and suspense. In the wake of the Russian Revolution, Maria Rasputin—eldest of the Rasputin children—recounts her infamous father’s final days, building a breathless narrative of intrigue, excess, and conspiracy that reveals the shocking truth of her father’s end and the identity of those who arranged it. What emerges is a nail-biting, richly textured new take on one of history’s most legendary episodes.