I read 30 pages. Absolute shit. Could have guessed because it's appelbaum, the anti-communists darling, but damn the introduction alone is filled with ahistoric liberal revisionism. All respect in the world for my friend, but its shit like this i cant take seriously. Doesnt help that this place has shown me that engaging with liberals is by and large pointless (i have known the guy for years but certain things i cant get through his head), so most of my criticism is just dunking on Appelbaum.
Whenever I hear Appelbaum I think of Tauger's takedown of her Holodomor book, exposing it as deeply ahistorical bullshit.
One must then ask, "why have so many heard of the fraud Appelbaum and not Tauger?" And hopefully confront the answer.
thats how I felt when I was recommended to read the Road to Serfdom by Hayek early on in my political development, when it became known I was studying different ideological constructions, analyses, and critiques of economics and political economy and theory and people suggested a bunch. Conquest of Bread was kumbaya idealist tripe (and that was before I even read much Marx) but it was whatever and had some nice ideas. But Hayek made me want to go back in time and beat him to death with his own book. This was a long time ago but I recall it started off right off the bat going "SOCIAL WELFARE IS SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL WELFARE IS WHAT MADE THE NAZIS HAPPEN WHO WERE SOCIALIST" it was a teeth-gritting experience.