1/14 My six books about #Ukraine. I am called upon to answer questions about Ukraine every day. My books, which represent a quarter century of research and thought, often do a better job than I can while speaking live or in short pieces.
2/14 I don't often mention my books on Ukraine, because I feel uneasy promoting things that cost money while people in Ukraine are suffering and dying in this horrible unjustifiable invasion. I will continue to make meaningful donations to Ukraine. If you can, I hope you will too
3/14 My book that is most immediately relevant to the Russian invasion of Ukraine is "The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America." It is a history of the 2010s that links Russia's first invasion of Ukraine (2014) to its interference in US elections (2016).
4/14 #RoadToUnfreedom deals with politics, ideology, and propaganda under Putin.
5/14 Of my books on Ukraine, the one that centers Ukraine in recent history is "Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin," a history of mass killing by both the Nazi and Soviet regimes.
6/14 Ukraine was the most dangerous place in the world between 1933 and 1945. The first chapter treats the Stalinist famine of 1933. #Bloodlands#Ukraine
7/14 "Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning" provides an interpretation of the Holocaust in which Hitler's desire to control Ukrainian land is a central element.
8/14 #BlackEarth addresses the questions I get about how the Holocaust by bullets proceeded in the occupied Soviet Union and about nationalism and collaboration.
9/14 "The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999" is about the emergence of Ukrainian and other modern nations from the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
10/14 The first of my six books on Ukraine, published twenty years ago, #ReconstructionOfNations does not cover the emergence of the Ukrainian civic nation in this century.
11/14 Of my books on Ukraine, "The Red Prince: The Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke," is perhaps the gentlest read. Its subject is an Austrian prince who chooses Ukrainian identity, aims at one time for a Ukrainian throne, and dies under interrogation by the KGB.
12/14 Its point is nations are a matter of commitment, not fate. #RedPrince#Ukraine
13/14 My close colleagues tend to think that "Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist's Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine" is my best book. It deals with the Polish-Soviet contest over Ukraine in the 1920s and 1930s.
14/14 Its protagonist was an artist who spent thirteen years in the underground. It contains my most thorough archival work. #SketchesSecretWar
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34/40 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
35/40 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
36/40 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
1/4. On the White House’s theory, if they abduct you, get you on a helicopter, get to international waters, shoot you in the head, and drop your corpse into the ocean, that is legal, because it is the conduct of foreign affairs.
2/4. The entire practice of the Holocaust of the Jews involved zones of statelessness. It is easier to move people away from law than it is to remove law from people. Almost all of the killing took place in artificially created stateless zones.
3/4. If we accept the idea that moving a person from one place to another undoes rights and disempowers the judiciary, we are endorsing the basic Nazism practice that enabled the killing of millions.
1/4. If the US were engaged in an attempt to bring peace to Ukraine, it would place more tariffs on Russia, rather than exempt Russia entirely.
2/4. In a world with fewer distractions, we would be shocked that the US made its tariff decisions during discussions with the head of the Russian sovereign investment fund.
3/4. Russia has rejected the ceasefire and continues a war that was criminal from the beginning. Under Trump, we are only making this easier. We are putting US power on Russia’s side.
1/7. In case you haven’t been following, here is a short summary of the misnamed Russian-American "peace process" regarding Ukraine.
2/7. The US demands that Ukraine accept an immediate unconditional ceasefire. Ukraine agrees.
3/7. Russia rejects any talk of such a ceasefire, and instead asks for a halt on strikes on energy targets, an area where Ukraine is hurting Russia. The US agrees and Ukraine agrees.
"Pete Hegseth: The Short Course – 13 Steps to National Destruction"
A thread. Full essay via link in image below or profile.
1. Pete Hegseth, Trump's nominee for secretary of defense, has no qualifications for the job. He has never run a large organization and has no national security expertise.
2. Hegseth has zero notion of which other countries might threaten America or how. In his books this is simply not a subject, beyond a few clichés.
1/5. The way Trump, Trump Jr, Tuberville, and Hannity are talking now about Greenland, Mexico, Panama, and Canada plagiarizes Putin in 2013, before the first invasion of Ukraine.
2/5. All this stuff about borders not mattering, people secretly wanting to be ruled by us, the unreality of their countries – not very American, not even MAGA, but very Kremlin.
3/5. At the very least, Trump is giving Putin cover for Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine by recycling Putin’s arguments against our own neighbors.