Phil Giltner

Just kept thinking of Capra's “You Can't Take It With You” as I read this. Plus ça change.

While it's well enough written, it's nothing especially newsworthy. If you somehow thought Putin was an interesting or fair person, you needed to read this book. If you thought he was a thug, then you didn't need a whole book to reaffirm what you thought.

As reliably readable as ever; however there's just not enough variety of subject here to fill a book. Started skimming at p 30. Put it away for good about p 80.

What a self/important, self-obsessed gasbag.

The book was famously passed around like samizdat for ages, but it is tedious and avoids much about the man that is interesting or important. I took me years to get round to this, but I was driven by the sense that I should really read what is said to be such an important work.

Spare yourself the effort. Life is too short.

Here is a a nice little wrap up of the man from a 1,000+ series of interesting vignettes

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2018/08/erik-visits-american-grave-part-299

Not a bad book: dated in some ways, perhaps, but useful in many others.

It's a good overview for people who haven't been thinking much about this stuff. If you have been already, however, not a lot of good new information.

Very good couple of pages here & there, such as when pointing out the civic and political necessity of ethically ambiguous people like LBJ or Huey Long.