Nationalism, Marxism, and Modern Central Europe

A Biography of Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz, 1872-1905

De: Timothy Snyder

Narrado por: Norman Dietz

Timothy Snyder opens a new path in the understanding of modern nationalism and 20th-century socialism by presenting the often overlooked life of Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz, an important Polish thinker at the beginning of the 20th century. During his brief life in Poland, Paris, and Vienna, Kelles-Krauz influenced or infuriated most of the leaders of the various socialist movements of Central Europe and France. His central ideas ultimately were not accepted by the socialist mainstream at the time of his death. However, a century later, we see that they anticipated late 20th-century understanding on the importance of nationalism as a social force and the parameters of socialism in political theory and praxis. Kelles-Krauz was one of the only theoreticians of his age to advocate Jewish national rights as being equivalent to, for example, Polish national rights, and he correctly saw the struggle for national sovereignty as being central to future events in Europe. This was the first major monograph in English devoted to Kelles-Krauz.

©2018 Oxford University Press (P)2018 Tantor

Fascinating

For me this was a wonderfull folliw up to Stephan Zweig Worlld of Yesterday for a deep dive into a whole other part of that pre WWI period. Full of intriguing detail that makes me want to learn more about the period and the people who rocked it

Butchering Polish names

The narrator has no idea how to read and pronounce Polish and other names. Completely ruins the experience. What a waste.

Not that interesting

Not interesting and didnt like the narrators voice. it makes sense why the guy was forgotten in history.

Confused Communist Grad Student

Interesting book on how Communism entered the 20th century. We know how it exited the 20th century. This is book about a Marxist grad student written by a confused grad student. Basically, a sad 1900's loser in a Paris cafe while engineers like Tesla, Westinghouse, Haber, and Edison were making the real world.

(1) Chapter 4 is nuts, a person without a job decides that modern production is "alienating". Manufacturing, the highest level of human action and coordination is completely misunderstood by a non-practitioner. The art of planning, supply chain, inventory, tool making, machine design, product development, logistics, and scheduling are modern marvels, but this dude has no clue. No wonder Communism led to famine and mass starvation, the art of working and management was too "alienating".
(2) You get silly Coconut Cult Scientism. Dude with zero knowledge of BioChemistry, Thermo, Irreducible Complex Systems, or Cells thinks that Darwin was ground breaking. Yikes, no wonder 20th century Communism had no problem with Mass Murder, people were just piles of goo.
(3) Would this book be written by a modern Polish person? What would Lech Walesa or St John Paul the Great say about the 19th century Communist schemers.
(4) This book never explains where Nationalism, Regionalism, and Socialism eventually took the world and Eastern Europe. How this ferment eventually resulted in horrible events in Eastern Europe. I'm not going to say this directly or the review is censored.
(5) Also, the Polish nationalists angle is weird. Do you know why France has no current regional dialects, they got rid of them, made a single France. That's what Russia was doing, copying France. But these dudes were hidding in France. But Russia had immigrant business people everywhere. Useful Engineers and Developers, not loser Sociology grad students. Many Germans. Even Swedes, the Nobel fortune was started in Baku, "Branobel".

The book itself is boring because the subject is a grad-student dreamer. This is not a man of action or a mature mind. It's a pathetic Saul Bellow character, Herzog the useless man.