Word: schell
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Another weakness is that the book gives short shrift to Soviet-American military balance and its political implications. Gandhi's strategy of passive resistance was effective against the British colonial rulers of India, but it is hardly applicable to the management of the Soviet challenge. Schell's position, like many others', seems to be that with the Soviet-American nuclear rivalry already at such grotesque levels of overkill, concepts of rough equivalence, equilibrium and stability lose all meaning. That proposition is highly debatable, yet Schell seems almost to take it for granted. While balance of power...
...fact, the whole political context in which the nuclear dilemma has come about is largely missing in Schell's book. He obviously regards the threat and evil of nuclear war as so immediate and so overwhelming that they eclipse all other threats and evils, apparently including those embodied by the Soviet system and Soviet behavior. The trouble with that line of thinking is that it could lead some readers to the sort of simple-minded defeatism summarized by the slogan "Better Red than dead." Better still to be neither Red nor dead, and that too is a choice available...
...worth recalling what Schell overlooks: "brinksmanship" was a feature of the Soviet-American contest in the '40s, '50s and early '60s, over Berlin (twice), Cuba and other trouble spots. That was back in the days when the U.S. had overwhelming nuclear superiority. Since the Soviets achieved nuclear parity with the U.S., and thus brought about the dilemma of true mutual deterrence that Schell describes so well, the two countries have tried to stay well back from the brink, despite the many points of tension between them. In short, the choice facing mankind may be less stark...
...Fate of the Earth is occasionally repetitious, its prose sometimes convoluted, and in a few passages Schell gratuitously indulges in pet peeves and theories. For example, Schell-a confirmed Nixon hater whose last book, The Time of Illusion, was on Watergate-at one point suggests that Nixon could conceive of detente with the Soviet leaders partly because he and they shared a contempt for human rights. Not only is this charge dubious, to say the least, it is irrelevant to his thesis. Schell, like any writer, needs a good editor...
...therein lies an irony. Schell has had one of the great editors of our time: William Shawn, the reclusive, brilliant, sometimes quirky but certainly benevolent dictator for the past 30 years at The New Yorker. Shawn is not only Schell's boss but his mentor as well. Insiders at the magazine believe that Shawn, 74, hopes that Schell, 38, will eventually succeed him-an idea that has caused some resistance among the staff, partly because Schell got a reputation as an overly emotional, "radic-lib" opponent of the Viet Nam War. Shawn, however, has continued to support...