June 2016 - Richard M. Langworth

Brexit: Britannia Waives the Rules

24 June 2016 Comments 0 Comments

Brexit aftermath, June 2016: In voting to leave the European Union, Britain has opted to become another Norway. One of the most prosperous and contented countries in the world, Norway does fine with its own laws, currency, and trade agreements, including a good one with the EU. It is hardly a bad model.

Short-term troubles

The gnashing of teeth over the upset Brexit victory resounds around the world. For awhile, chaos will attend financial markets, and the pound will take a dip (boosting British exports).

The Scots voted against Brexit, though not in the numbers predicted.…

Maisky and Churchill: Hard to Put Down

8 June 2016 Comments 0 Comments

Ivan Maisky: “The greatest sin of modern statesman is vacillation and ambiguity of thought and action.”

Gabriel Gorodetsky, ed., The Maisky Diaries: Red Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 634 pages, $28.80, Kindle $19.99, audiobook $36.32.

Excerpted from the Hillsdale College Churchill Project. To read in full, click here.

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A striking work of scholarship (actually an abridgement of a three-volume complete work coming in 2016), this book will inspire fresh scholarship on Churchill, Russia and World War II. Ivan Maisky was a penetrating observer of 1932-43 Britain, and Gabriel Gorodetsky connects every long gap in his diaries with informed accounts of what was happening.…