Vixi: Memoirs of a Non-Belonger

By Richard Pipes and Richard. Pipes

Book Overview

A distinguished historian, Harvard professor, and White House adviser looks back on his own life and on the tumultuous twentieth century

Sixteen-year-old Richard Pipes escaped from Nazi-occupied Warsaw with his family in October 1939. Their flight took them to the United States by way of Italy, and Pipes went on to earn a college degree, join the U.S. Air Corps, serve as professor of Russian history at Harvard for nearly forty years, and become adviser to President Reagan on Soviet and Eastern European affairs. In this engrossing book, the eminent historian remembers the events of his own remarkable life as well as the unfolding of some of the twentieth century's most extraordinary political events.

From his youthful memories of bombs falling on Warsaw to his recollections of the conflicts inside the Reagan administration over American policies toward the USSR, Pipes offers penetrating observations as well as fascinating portraits of such cultural and political figures as Isaiah Berlin, Ronald Reagan, and Alexander Haig. Perhaps most interesting of all, Pipes depicts his evolution as a historian and his understanding of how history is witnessed and how it is recorded.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0300109652
• ISBN13: 9780300109658
• Release Date: January 2006
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Length: 312 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Lovely memoir of an extraordinary life

Those born into Polish Jewry did not expect or want extraordinary lives, but if they escaped the conflagration, as Richard Pipes and his parents did, they involuntarily gained such lives. Pipes writes with his usual eloquence, such a rare trait among today's inept and jargon-fouled academics, and fascinatingly tells of the vanished multiethnic Poland he knew, acclimation to college in Ohio, and his distinguished academic...

Alive and kicking!

When Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union 'the evil empire', much of the western left stood up on its hind legs and howled in dismay - but today, after the Soviet Union had collapsed, people in Moscow commonly refer to their past as 'the evil empire'. Prof Pipes, a leading Russian expert, was one of few westerners who saw through the farce of communism and urged the hard and sensible line against the USSR, which ultimately...

One of the Best Books of the Year

It might seem unlikely that the autobiography of a professor of Russian History should be of interest to the general reader. However, Professor Pipes has written a book that deserves to be read by a wide audience. In fact, I would especially recommend it to intelligent high school and college readers.Pipes recounts three main stages of his life: His youth in and flight from prewar Poland; his education and building of a...

Interesting Life of a Brilliant Scholar

Pipes is the greatest living student of imperial Russia and the revolution. His influence on a generation of scholars and commentators is only matched by Conquest's. Anyone interested in policymaking relative to the Soviet Union will enjoy this book, as will people interested in the evolution of a distinguished intellectual. How many people could invite Isiah Berlin, Bunny Wilson and George Kennan to dinner and expect them...

Vivet

A wonderfully engaging autobiography of a man who, as a teenager. was present when the Germans entered Warsaw in 1939, and who, as an adult, was a close adviser of President Reagan and one of the very few people to understand the Soviet Union. A story told with wit and panache. The best autobiography to come out of Harvard since that of J.K. Galbraith. It will live.