Before the Storm

Rick Pearl... Paerl... Aperl... Lrep... Perlstein writes:

Just a little note to folks who've said nice things about Before the Storm. It's going out of print, at least for a while now (a new edition may be forthcoming in coordination with the release of my next book some time next year), so spread the word to those who might want to snap up a new copy while they can...

Can this be? There are hundreds of thousands of people serious and interested in politics--on the left and the right--who have not read and do not own Before the Storm.

Buy one. Buy ten, and give them to your friends.

Comments

[WatchfulBabbler]

And, while you're at it, try and find "The Agony of the GOP 1964," written by Bob Novak back when he was a reporter and not the PoD. Interesting view from a very different time.

[Delicious Pundit]

I thought Novak was the DoL.

[jjj]

if you are a junkie for 60s history ,then you dont want to miss before the storm. it was a great and informative read about aa period of which i am quite fond. jjj

[Bruce Cleaver]

FWIW:

Orrin Judd, of the conservative Brothers Judd blog, *also* praises the book, and *also* recommends you get yourself a copy as soon as possible. If both left(BDL)& right (OJ) praise the book....get it.

[ignaciopijije]

Yes, della Paolera is Argentinean, of that lineage that assimilates uncritically the cultural essentialism taught in Chicago, Harvard or MIT. Witness Rudi Dornbusch's (and his Chilean coauthor's) solution for sound policy in Argentina: "it must temporarily surrender its sovereignty on all financial issues” and be “prepared to endure and support a [foreign] authority which must enforce reforms entailing harder conditions than those at present prevailing” {Caballero and Dornbusch, 2002 econ-www.mit.edu/faculty/dornbusch/download.php?ids=38). Della Paollera has all his arguments rights, but his idealisation of Anglo-Saxon culture doesn't allow him to see that the Argentinean banking system has long been (perhaps never been) anything but Gaucho. What he calls justly the "megaswap robbery", for instance, was sold to Cavallo by Credit Swisse First Boston's David Mulford. Here is what Blustein (2005, this website) has to say about the deal: "the megaswap (...) ranks among the most infamous deals that Wall Street has ever peddled to a government (…). For CSFB and a half dozen other Wall Street firms, the megaswap would be a bonanza. (…) For Argentina, it would be a bust, rendering the country’s solvency even more questionable than it was already." I'm sure della Paolera is aware of the connections between Argentinean and world finance. Yet, he stubornly sticks to explain the behaviour as part of the Argentinean "spirit", a "caudillo-style (…) backwardness" that persists in his natal land. Colonised mindsets: this is precisely what keeps the vultures fat.

ignacio