Book 58 - Luke Harding "Collusion"
Jul. 26th, 2020 05:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzy_daveLuke Harding "Collusion: How Russia Helped Trump Win the White House" (Guardian Faber Publishing)
First, the author, Luke Harding, is a highly respected reporter for The Guardian, and he is an expert on matters involving Russia. He is also the author of a book on the radiation poisoning of Russian exile Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 in London.
Luke Harding's book is an in-depth look at the Trump family, their dealings with Russia before and during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and the extent to which the Russian government and major financial institutions like Deutsche Bank are involved in worldwide financial corruption and money laundering. Harding does an excellent job of taking the disjointed, murky, and often financially complex pieces of information about what happened and shaping a coherent narrative from them. Coherent, and damning, and likely just the tip of the iceberg. It's even more amazing to me just how viciously the American electorate cut off its own nose in order to spite its face when they elected this monster.
Collusion is about a rapidly changing current event and the book may well be dated after a couple of years since its publication. Nevertheless, it can be seen as an intelligence briefing providing a comprehensive narrative of what we know so far. It's fairly complicated given all the players involved, and deserving of a book-length treatment because it's difficult to see the big picture by following news stories only. As such I think it's essential reading for anyone who wants to know about the biggest intelligence operation success story in history.
It's off the charts in terms of how massive the operation was, and how successful. Russia has been working towards this day since the 1970s. Although it involved the Internet and hacking, at the core they used old school intelligence techniques known to work. And work it did, probably beyond expectations. This book and allegations of Russian involvement are not partisan paranoia, it is very real and still ongoing.
One day some historians will write a cogent analysis of this sad and sordid period of American politics. Till then I recommend this wholeheartedly.
First, the author, Luke Harding, is a highly respected reporter for The Guardian, and he is an expert on matters involving Russia. He is also the author of a book on the radiation poisoning of Russian exile Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 in London.
Luke Harding's book is an in-depth look at the Trump family, their dealings with Russia before and during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and the extent to which the Russian government and major financial institutions like Deutsche Bank are involved in worldwide financial corruption and money laundering. Harding does an excellent job of taking the disjointed, murky, and often financially complex pieces of information about what happened and shaping a coherent narrative from them. Coherent, and damning, and likely just the tip of the iceberg. It's even more amazing to me just how viciously the American electorate cut off its own nose in order to spite its face when they elected this monster.
Collusion is about a rapidly changing current event and the book may well be dated after a couple of years since its publication. Nevertheless, it can be seen as an intelligence briefing providing a comprehensive narrative of what we know so far. It's fairly complicated given all the players involved, and deserving of a book-length treatment because it's difficult to see the big picture by following news stories only. As such I think it's essential reading for anyone who wants to know about the biggest intelligence operation success story in history.
It's off the charts in terms of how massive the operation was, and how successful. Russia has been working towards this day since the 1970s. Although it involved the Internet and hacking, at the core they used old school intelligence techniques known to work. And work it did, probably beyond expectations. This book and allegations of Russian involvement are not partisan paranoia, it is very real and still ongoing.
One day some historians will write a cogent analysis of this sad and sordid period of American politics. Till then I recommend this wholeheartedly.
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